With more than 30 years of experience in education, Robert Fellmeth, JD, has established himself as an expert specializing in child advocacy and legal services.
Fellmeth has decades of experience in child advocacy and consumer advocacy. His notable career stems from his distinguished education.
A Decorated Education and Distinguished Experience
In 1967, Fellmeth earned a bachelor’s degree in political science and in humanities, cum laude, from Stanford University, followed by a Juris Doctor from Harvard University Law School in 1970. While at Harvard, he served as an editor of the Harvard Civil Rights–Civil Liberties Law Review. He also led numerous consumer projects related to the work of Ralph Nader, including studies with the FTC that led to reform legislation in 1972. He led studies of the Interstate Commerce Commission, the Congress, and land use policy and law in California — each project involved published reports, books, and legislative reforms.
Following this period, Fellmeth worked as a deputy district attorney in San Diego, California, where he started the nation’s first antitrust local prosecution unit. He was subsequently cross-commissioned as an assistant U.S. attorney and was tasked with also enforcing federal antitrust law, as well as state. During this time, he brought 22 antitrust actions, all of which yielded judgments — including the judgment of price fixing by national, state, and local boards of realtors.
Outside of these efforts, Fellmeth previously gained invaluable work experience at the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency of the United States State Department, where he reviewed classified international cables and worked on the ratification of the Treaty of the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in 1968.
Fellmeth shifted his knowledge and skills to teaching in 1981, becoming a professor of law at the University of San Diego School of Law and rising to Price Professor of Public Interest Law in 1992. Additionally, he is the founder and executive director of the Centers for Public Interest at the school. These three centers engage in education, advocacy, and litigation in their respective areas: environmental law, consumer protection, and child rights.
His students graduated from law school with a concentration in child rights, consumer protection, or energy policy initiatives, and they now positively impact law and policy nationally. They are one of Fellmeth’s most notable achievements. His teaching includes clinics, legislative advocacy, and litigation. It involves advocacy offices with counsel located in Sacramento and Washington, DC, and participation in many of the national associations, including Public Citizen and the National Association of Counsel for Children, among others.
Fellmeth’s consumer protection work includes the monitoring of major state agencies by staff and students, including the California Regulatory Law Reporter published by Westlaw, and disclosing the activities of major state agencies in detail — the only reporter of its kind in the nation.
Fellmeth has been much involved in administrative law, and his projects have involved substantial reforms to six major agencies, including the Athletic Commission, the Public Utilities Commission, the Medical Board, the Contractors’ State Licensing Board, the Accountancy Board, and the State Bar. He chaired the Athletic Commission for four years, during which time he successfully proposed the world’s only disability and pension system for boxers.
At the State Bar, Fellmeth was appointed the “Discipline Monitor of the Bar” by the State Attorney General in the early 1980s and wrote legislation to create the nation’s only State Bar Court to adjudicate attorney discipline — a model state system for independent regulation of counsel.
Fellmeth is the founder and director of the Children’s Advocacy Institute (CAI), a leading academic, research, and advocacy association founded in 1989. The CAI works to improve children’s lives through public education, impact litigation, and legislative changes. Using all the necessary tools to improve youth education and well-being, the CAI brought landmark litigation by challenging a state’s low reimbursements to foster parents, aiming to secure better pay and care for both the parents and the children they provide care for.
At the CAI, Fellmeth works on legislative reports and litigation. He is responsible for creating “Kids’ Plates” — vehicle license plate options allowing the use of hearts, plus signs and other symbols, with millions in fees generated dedicated to child safety measures.
Roughly 400 former students who took Fellmeth’s Child Rights and Remedies course are now working in the same field. Relevant legislature involved 50 to 60 bills related to child welfare, 20 statutes, and about 60 to 70 cases involving both child rights and consumer protection.
Publications and Achievements
Beyond his time in the classroom and CAI, Fellmeth has published multiple articles and contributed to textbooks on law, children’s rights, and more. These publications include the textbook “Child Rights and Remedies: How the US Legal System Affects Children,” published in 2019 and now used in 30 law schools nationwide. He is also the co-author of “Regulatory Law and the Public Interest,” a consumer protection book published in 2024.
While Fellmeth’s most notable achievements are the students who have graduated from his law school and moved on to fight for worthy causes like children’s rights and consumer protection, he is also proud of his passion project, Model State Statutes for Children, a website and platform that raises awareness and illustrates examples of model legislation to curb the mistreatment of children.
Fellmeth is presently working on a major case relating to social security benefits for children in foster care and those who leave the system at age 18 to 21. Many of these people lack parental support – a factor that is crucial in a nation where self-sufficiency is typically achieved at the median age of 26. Alleging that a great deal of disability and survivor benefits end up being embezzled by local and state officials, Fellmeth has helped to end such practices in a number of states, including Arizona and Washington, D.C. He is currently litigating the issue in California.
Fellmeth’s knowledge, experience, and dedication to seeing positive change in the lives of children propel him forward in continuing to advocate for changes in the legal system that can ensure more children are provided with the love, safety, and necessities required to succeed in life.
