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Kara Brighton
Kara is a Wyoming native, born in Wheatland, where her parents worked on her grandparent’s family ranch. As a young child, her family moved to western Nebraska when they purchased the John Deere dealership in Kimball. After graduating from Kimball High School, Kara received her Bachelor’s Degree in Small Business Management from the University of Wyoming in 1993. In 1996, she received her Juris Doctorate from the University of Nebraska College of Law. Following graduation from the University of Nebraska, she returned to Wyoming to work at the Wyoming Attorney General’s Office on the Nebraska v. Wyoming litigation. As part of the Wyoming team, she participated in the trial preparation, settlement negotiations and settlement implementation phases of the dispute between the states of Nebraska and Wyoming related to the North Platte River. When the case settled in 2000, she started Hageman & Brighton with Wyoming lawyer, Harriet Hageman, with the goal of providing water and natural resource law services to ranchers and other Wyoming water users. She currently serves as general counsel to the Wheatland Irrigation District, the largest private irrigation district in the United States, and many other water users throughout Wyoming. She is a regular speaker at water law conferences in and around Wyoming regarding Wyoming water law and subdivision development, among other issues. Kara was named one of Wyoming’s “40 Under Forty” by the Casper Star-Tribune in its inaugural class of 2005. She also serves on the Advisory Board for the University of Wyoming College of Agriculture. She received the 2010 Distinguished Service Award for Wyoming from the Upper Missouri Water Users Association.
