Robert Bilott

Robert Bilott (born August 2, 1965) is an American environmental attorney from Cincinnati, Ohio. Bilott is known for the lawsuits against DuPont on behalf of plaintiffs injured by chemical waste dumped in rural communities in West Virginia. Bilott has spent more than twenty years litigating hazardous dumping of the chemicals perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS). They were unregulated as industry had never publicly identified them as having known hazardous effects, despite internal studies showing these results. Bilott's litigation was the foundation for his memoir titled Exposure: Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyer's Twenty-Year Battle Against DuPont (2019). As a result of his work, he became the subject of increasing media attention in the late 2010s. The 2018 documentary The Devil We Know and the 2019 feature film Dark Waters drew attention to his legal battles with Dupont and the hazards of these chemicals. This public attention resulted in his receiving numerous awards, including the international Right Livelihood Award. In 2024, President Joe Biden announced the first standards for regulating PFAS in drinking water in the United States, as well as $1 billion in funding to aid districts and cities to protect their water supplies.