Ballenger, Michael

Yigal Bander was born in New York City and grew up in Michigan.  He moved back to New York with his family when he was 12.  Yigal's lifelong interest in community affairs and commitment to social justice expressed itself as early as age 14 when he was president of his local Teens for Johnson-Humphrey organization during the 1964 presidential election.

After graduating from high school at 17, Yigal went to Israel to study Hebrew and live on a kibbutz.  He attended Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he was active in student government.  He graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in humanities.  After serving in the Israel Defense Forces, he worked for the Israel Ministry of Finance for three years as an organization and methods analyst before returning to the U.S. with his wife and two young daughters.

Yigal and his growing family - two more daughters were born - lived in Philadelphia, Alabama, and Florida before coming to Baton Rouge in 1985.  Yigal served for five years as Executive Director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Baton Rouge and then embarked on a career in clinical social work, having received his MSW from Louisiana State University in 1989.  He became a Licensed Clinical Social Worker.

Yigal always dreamed of being a lawyer.  In 1994, with his wife Ellen launched on her own career as a public school teacher, and his children able to look after themselves, Yigal started law school at Louisiana State University, where he was awarded the Phelps Dunbar Scholarship.  He made Law Review and graduated in 1997 in the top quarter of his class.  He practiced with Kleinpeter & Schwartzberg, LLC until January of 2010, when he joined Manasseh, Gill, Knipe & Belanger.

Yigal is admitted to practice in Louisiana, New York, and the District of Columbia, and before the U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the U.S. District Courts for the Eastern, Western, and Middle Districts of Louisiana.  He is a member of the Louisiana State and Baton Rouge Bar Associations and the Louisiana Association for Justice.

Yigal frequently writes and speaks on a number of different legal subjects, and consults for other attorneys in the area of liens and subrogation claims.  His articles have been published in Around the Bar (Baton Rouge Bar Association), Louisiana Advocates (Louisiana Association for Justice), Verdict (Georgia Trial Lawyers Association), and the Louisiana Law Review.    
 
Yigal practices in the areas of personal injury (car crashes, industrial accidents, premises liability, etc.), criminal defense, civil rights, and teachers's rights.  He is an attorney for East Baton Rouge Federation of Teachers, for Associated Professional Educations of Louisiana (APEL), and for several small businesses.  Yigal is a trial lawyer who fights for his clients.  He enjoys seeing cases through from start to finish, whether through settlement, trial, or appeal.  He gives his personal attention to every case he takes.  He knows what it was like not being a lawyer for the first 47 years of his life, and tries to remain courteous and compassionate even under the stress of a busy and adversarial legal practice.

Some of Yigal's most notable cases are Dorsey v. Consolidated Freightways, Ernest v. Petroleum Service Corporation, Stoshak v. East Baton Rouge Parish School Board, and East Baton Rouge Federation of Teachers v. East Baton Rouge Parish School Board.  The ACLU has recognized Yigal as a Defender of Civil Liberties.

Yigal continues to act on his decades long interest in public affairs and social justice.  In the early 90s, he served as Chair of the Capital Area United Way Admissions Committee and of the Social Action Committee of the Louisiana chapter of the National Association of Social Workers.  He was a candidate for State Representative in 1999, and served on the EBR Democratic Parish Executive Committee from 2000 to 2004.  In November of 2004, he spent a week in New Mexico as a volunteer Voter Protection attorney.  And in 2006-2007, he volunteered his legal services to oppose the creation of what he and others believed to be a re-segregated school district.  

When not working for his clients, Yigal enjoys classical music and opera, reading, travel, and LSU and Saints football.  He and his wife Ellen subscribe to and support the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra and enjoy traveling to opera and classical music performances in New York, Washington, Houston, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Santa Fe.  They also enjoy visiting art museums, and have toured nearly every major museum in North America.  Their favorite national parks are Grand Canyon, Zion, Yosemite and North Cascades.

Yigal and Ellen are the ecstatic grandparents of Joshua.