Robert J. Gaudet, Jr. and Karin Gaudet-Asmus in federal court in El Paso

Robert Joseph Gaudet, Jr. became interested in law school as an undergraduate at Columbia University where he met the dean, Jack Greenberg, who had worked on Brown v. Board of Education and other class actions.  After reading a biography about Thurgood Marshall and a book called Superlawyers, Mr. Gaudet decided to become a lawyer.  Years later, he started RJ Gaudet & Associates LLC while studying class actions in Europe with the support of a Fulbright Grant.

Mr. Gaudet is rated a 10.0 out of 10.0 by the Avvo lawyer rating website.  He has litigated consumer protection, civil rights, RICO, Bivens Constitutional rights, breach of contract, fraud, and other cases across the United States, many of which were reported in the media.  Since starting R.J. Gaudet & Associates LLC, Mr. Gaudet has assisted Dutch companies with multi-million dollar loan agreements, employment contracts, and litigation in the United States.  Mr. Gaudet appeared before the European Commission at a consultation in Brussels to emphasize the need for class actions to protect consumers.

A federal court in New York appointed Mr. Gaudet to serve as Class Counsel in a class action against the Republic of Argentina for defaulting on its sovereign bonds.  Mr. Gaudet also represents consumers who object to a class action settlement with De Beers that pays Class Counsel $75,000,000 in attorney’s fees while paying only $1 each to 117 million consumers.

In the Bar/Bri antitrust class action in Los Angeles, Mr. Gaudet successfully argued for a $3 million reduction in fees to two Class Counsel firms, a $9 million reduction in fees to McGuireWoods, and elimination of $325,000 in incentive fees for Class Representatives.  These savings were returned to the settlement fund for distribution to class members.

Mr. Gaudet served as Co-Chair of the International Human Rights Committee of the American Bar Association Section of International Law for two years during which time the Committee grew 55 percent in membership and won awards for best teleconference, a book drive for Zimbabwe, and best website; and founded a trial observation task force.  Mr. Gaudet served on a International Human Rights Lawyer Award Committee in the American Bar Association, for two years, to select lawyers who suffered persecution for work in human rights.

For two years, Mr. Gaudet taught European Union Law and a post-graduate seminar on International Human Rights to students at Maynooth University in Ireland.  In one term, Mr. Gaudet taught “Introduction to American Law” to 58 law students at Maastricht University in the Netherlands; he spent an entire lesson on class actions and Brown v. Board of Education and asked his class to read A Civil Action and watch the film based on the book with an opportunity, afterwards, to speak by Skype with the lawyer who was portrayed by John Travolta in the movie.

In his first five years of legal practice, Mr. Gaudet worked at Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP where he served as interim class counsel in a multi-billion dollar class action against Eli Lilly regarding misrepresentations about the drug Zyprexa, worked on the Average Wholesale Price litigation in federal court in Massachusetts, and served as lead lawyer in a class action in California against Anheuser-Busch and Miller for encouraging underage people to drink.  Mr. Gaudet also provided legal advice to defendant Microsoft Corporation with respect to the settlement of antitrust class action lawsuits in various states.  While working out of Seattle on cases across the United States, Mr. Gaudet volunteered each month for the Union Gospel Mission legal clinic for homeless people in Seattle; Mr. Gaudet also organized legal clinics for homeless residents of the Tent City.

During law school, Mr. Gaudet worked as a summer associate at the class action law firm of Ness Motley Loadholt Richardson & Poole PA in Charleston, South Carolina; the corporate law firm of Baker Botts in Dallas, Texas; the Bear Stearns Risk Arbitrage Desk in New York City; the litigation boutique of Susman Godfrey in Dallas, Texas; the law firm of Roberts Sheridan Kotel (now Dickstein Shapiro) in New York City; and the legal department of Habitat for Humanity International in Americus, Georgia.  During law school, Mr. Gaudet volunteered for the East Palo Alto Community Law Project and organized Building Community Day in which over 300 Stanford students cleaned up East Palo Alto in a day of volunteer service.

Before law school, Mr. Gaudet worked in the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division Criminal Section on racial violence, police misconduct, and slavery cases.  He recommended investigations for the F.B.I. and assembled a database of attacks on mosques in the United States.  He also served as an intern in the Clinton White House Office of Public Liaison, the Democratic National Committee Office of Latino Affairs, and the office of a U.S. Congressman.  As an Eesti Fellow from Columbia University, Mr. Gaudet served as editor of The Baltic Review: Business Magazine of the Baltic States.

Mr. Gaudet studied world religion and Christianity at Oxford University.  He co-founded the Oxford Student Group Habitat for Humanity and fought on the Oxford University varsity boxing team.  During college, Mr. Gaudet served as a Peace Monitor in the Wits/Vaal Regional Peace Secretariat in the townships around Johannesburg, South Africa.  He taught English Skills and C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe to under-privileged students from Harlem at the Double Discovery Center of Columbia University.

Mr. Gaudet attended the Friends School of Baltimore with a scholarship where he played lacrosse and volunteered at the Baltimore Museum of Industry.

Mr. Gaudet is licensed to practice law in the State of Texas and the State of Washington.  He works with co-counsel in other jurisdictions and appears pro hac vice in cases in other states.  He is a member of the National Employment Lawyers Association (NELA), Public Justice, the American Bar Association Section of International Law, and the American Bar Association Section of Litigation. He is a graduate of the Gerry Spence Method trial lawyer program in Wyoming.