Early Life
Strauss was born in Lockhart, Texas, south of Austin. He is the son of Edith Violet (née Schwarz) and Charles H. Strauss. His parents were Jewish immigrants from Germany. When he was a year old, his family moved to the small town of Hamlin, north of Abilene, and later to the slightly larger nearby town of Stamford. Strauss's father opened a small general store in Stamford.
In his sophomore year at The University of Texas at Austin Strauss campaigned for a state assembly candidate and was given a part-time job as a Committee Clerk in the Texas State Legislature. In 1937, while still an undergraduate, he volunteered for Lyndon Johnson's first congressional campaign. Strauss was also a member of the Texas Cowboys, an honorary service organization at UT. In law school at the University of Texas, he met another student who would have a large impact on his career, John B. Connally. After completing his law degree, Strauss was hired as a special agent by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and served in the FBI throughout World War II. At the end of the war, he settled in Dallas, where he and a fellow FBI agent, Richard A. Gump, founded their own law firm. This firm, originally known as Gump and Strauss, would eventually grow into the international law firm Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld.
Read more about this topic: Robert Schwarz Strauss
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