From Oklahoma City roots and Florida school years to a career shaped by his father’s example, criminal defense attorney Billy Coyle describes success as family, and the work itself as challenging the government in court—trial by trial, nine jury trials over th
Billy Coyle talks the way people do when they’ve already lived the moment they’re describing. He was born in Oklahoma City. spent several years there. and then—because his mother’s family was from Fort Lauderdale. Florida—moved there when he was young. He went to high school in Florida, graduating from Fort Lauderdale High (the Flying Ls) in 1993.
Oklahoma never fully left him. His father—“JW,” always from Oklahoma City—meant he’d come home for the holidays. Coyle says he still remembers Oklahoma summers too, when he visited every year with his father for vacation, including a two-week summer trip across the country.
The stories he tells about childhood sound like music from the 1980s: “Being a kid in the 80s was awesome, great music, great movies.”
By the time he was old enough to picture a future, the path had started forming around one family tradition—defense. Coyle says his father is a well-known criminal defense lawyer, and that he always tried to “instill a sense of passion for helping defend the citizen accused.”
He went to college at Florida State University, graduating with a degree in Finance. After one year working for Morgan Stanley. he says he quickly knew he wanted to follow in his dad’s footsteps. Twenty-six years ago. he moved back to Oklahoma and attended both Oklahoma City University and the University of Oklahoma Schools of Law.
His home life, he adds, is the same kind of gravity as the courtroom. His wife is a lawyer, and his children want to be lawyers—“who knows.” “It literally runs in the blood,” he said.
What Coyle says he’s most passionate about professionally is blunt: defending people. He loves challenging the government, and over the last year he has tried nine jury trials. He says he never expected to feel as much pull toward trial work as he does now. But, as he’s gotten older, he “just refused to quit,” he said. It also helps, he added, when the client refuses to quit.
For Coyle, the hardest part isn’t the legal process—it’s the atmosphere he believes often comes with it. He argues that while it’s “the Government’s burden,” the assumption of guilt seems to outweigh the presumption of innocence until he has his chance to help.
That clash sits at the heart of how he measures his own life. Coyle says his definition of success hasn’t changed as his career developed. “Success is family, period.”
He is married to Oklahoma County District Judge Heather Coyle. He has three children: Jack, 18; Lilly, 15; and Lilah, 13. He says his son just graduated Bishop McGuiness High School and is going to the University of Oklahoma this fall. His mother passed five years ago, and he says he misses her every day.
He credits his parents directly for the life he built: “My father inspired me, my mother raised me.” He points to still-practicing fatherhood in the family and the presence of his wife’s parents nearby as a “true blessing.”
Even his routine, Coyle says, circles back to the work and the day-to-day craft of the courtroom. He usually wakes up around 6:30 a.m. and puts on a suit. He lives in Nichols Hills, while his office is downtown on Park Avenue. As a criminal defense lawyer. he gets to go to court every day. and he describes it as an “honor and privilege.”.
Representing people in what he calls their darkest hour is, in his view, one of the most admirable things possible. “I get to dress up and argue in court five days a week,” he said.
Before the law, he also went where discipline was demanded. At 18, he enlisted in the United States Marine Reserves and went to Parris Island, South Carolina for boot camp. He recalls the recruiter telling him it would be a challenge and that if he made it through boot camp. he’d always be able to claim the title of Marine. He admits he knows he was being recruited—but he says he thanks the recruiter anyway because it lit a fire that “has never stopped.”.
His bucket list isn’t complicated. He wants to keep working hard and helping people. And “lord-willing,” he wants grandkids one day. He says he’s watched his father help and raise his kids so much that it warms his heart.
Coyle also traces his sports heroes back to the larger-than-life figures of his teenage years. He points to “the BOZ and Switzer” as bigger than life. and says he’s gotten to know Barry Switzer in life—calling him an amazing man who is still sharp and remembers his name to this day. In college, he says Bobby Bowden was his hero. He describes the Seminoles of the 90s as dominant. and says he admired both how good Bowden was as a coach and how good he was as a man.
When he thinks about how he wants to be remembered, it’s the same through-line as everything else: someone who worked hard, played hard, and loved his family.
He also answered the question he didn’t think he’d been asked yet, returning to the words that guide him. He has a quote from Theodore Roosevelt framed on his wall:
“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered with failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.”
Then he recalled a moment from early in his legal career. He told his dad he didn’t want to make the prosecutor mad. His father wrote him a note and he still has it framed: “Rule No. 1 — Never ever ever worry about making the DA angry or worry about being aggressive on behalf of your client. You are sworn to defend, not to make friends.”.
For Coyle, the idea is simple and demanding: his job is to defend, even when it’s not comfortable. Everything he’s described—from Oklahoma holidays and Florida graduation years, to finance school and law school, to nine jury trials over the last year—keeps returning to one promise.
Work hard. Defend the accused. And go home to family at the end of the day.
Billy Coyle criminal defense attorney Oklahoma City Fort Lauderdale High Florida State University Morgan Stanley Oklahoma City University University of Oklahoma Schools of Law Heather Coyle jury trials Marine Reserves Parris Island Barry Switzer Bobby Bowden