Up & Coming: Kate Jaycox

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Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi

Kate Jaycox has always gravitated to the underdog.  Jaycox got her start not in law but in politics. She worked for Bill Bradley’s presidential campaign in 2000 and Mike Freeman’s 1998 Minnesota gubernatorial campaign, among others. But she had always planned on practicing law.

She graduated from the University of Minnesota Law School in 2004 and joined Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi in 2004.

At RKMC, Jaycox does multi-district litigation, including cases centering on recalled artificial hips and other medical devices and a consumer fraud class action where she defended Cargill.

One of the early cases she worked on at RKMC was Charbonneau v. Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Pfizer, where a team led by named partner Michael Ciresi won an $8.2 million judgment on behalf of plaintiffs injured by Mirapex, a medication for Parkinson’s disease that also can cause compulsive behaviors.

Jaycox likes fighting for plaintiffs’ rights, and helping ordinary people with difficult, painful problems. “Most of these people would rather not have to contact an attorney,” she said. “I represent people who could never afford to go up against, say, the largest medical device manufacturer in the country.”

Jaycox is on the board of governors for the American Association for Justice, and she’s on both the board of governors and the executive committee for the Minnesota Association for Justice.

In her pro bono work, which has been as much as 400 hundred hours a year, Jaycox focuses mostly on representing children. She works for the Children’s Law Center on guardian ad litem matters, including a case involving three children and the Indian Child Welfare Act that led to a three-day trial and a settlement. “When you see the dedication of guardians and public defenders and you know how much they get paid, I just feel it’s my duty to do some of that work,” she said.