Jason has
always been
very focused,”
says Megan
Ruwe, a
classmate.
“He was
definitely a
gunner. He was
the definition
of it.”
At Creighton University School of Law in
Omaha, where he finished near the top of
the class—a success due, at least in part, to
his habit of always sitting in the front row.
“Jason has always been very focused and
wanted to absorb as much information and
knowledge as he could,” says Megan Ruwe,
a close friend and classmate of Braun’s.
“He was definitely considered to be a
gunner. He was the definition of it.”
Starting out in junior college in his native
Orange County, Calif., Braun had originally
planned on becoming a high school
coach and history teacher and earned an
associate’s degree in physical education.
His relentless curiosity and work ethic
were on display back in those days when
he worked as a waiter at Red Lobster. His
attention to customer service earned him
high marks from a secret diner sent from
the company’s corporate headquarters.
At Ajamie in Houston, defending
investors against financial fraud has
become Braun’s bread and butter. He’s
currently helping clients bilked by Texas
financier Robert Allen Stanford’s $7 billion
Ponzi scheme, and representing a limited
partnership that invested in one of the
many feeder funds that lost out because of
Bernie Madoff’s massive Ponzi scheme.
“They all feel like somehow they were
at fault—that they did something wrong,”
says Braun. “That’s what pisses me off
so much. Not only were these people
victimized, they were also made to feel it
was their fault.”
Braun is well-positioned to understand the
pressures his clients face from unscrupulous
brokers: In his first two years post-law
school, the bulk of his work at Haynes and
Boone was defending brokerage firms. That
knowledge quickly came in handy at Ajamie,
where he became heavily involved in claims
against Securities America Inc., a division of
Ameriprise Financial Inc.
Braun helped clients like Dan Rogas, a
former offensive lineman for the Detroit
Lions and Philadelphia Eagles. Rogas, in
his 80s, lost $500,000 when a longtime
friend and broker advised him to dump
conservative stocks and bonds for a private
placement with Medical Capital Holdings,
a company that misappropriated funds,
investing them in a yacht, an Internet
porn business and a film starring Cheech
Marin. In total, investors like Rogas lost
$400 million. Thomas Ajamie, the firm’s
managing partner, says he couldn’t be
happier with Braun’s approach to the job.
