Kellett & Bartholow: The Dallas Firm That Sued Wells Fargo for $185 Million on Behalf of Debtors

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At a Glance

Origin & Founder History

Theodore “Thad” O. Bartholow III earned his J.D. from Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law (Yeshiva University) in 2002 and was admitted to the New York bar in 2005 before becoming licensed in Texas. He co-founded Kellett & Bartholow PLLC with Karen L. Kellett, and the two have built the firm specifically around consumer litigation arising out of bankruptcy and debt-collection matters, rather than general consumer bankruptcy filing services.

Practice Concentration

This is a genuinely distinct model from a standard filing-focused bankruptcy firm: Kellett & Bartholow litigates on behalf of consumer debtors against the financial institutions on the other side of their bankruptcy or debt-collection matter — mortgage servicers, debt collectors, and other creditors — pursuing individual and class-action claims for violations of bankruptcy stay protections, debt-collection law, and related consumer-protection statutes, in state, federal, and bankruptcy courts nationwide, not limited to Texas.

Track Record

Bartholow’s litigation results are substantial and specifically documented: he secured hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements and judgments against financial-services defendants, including recent class-action settlements of $185 million and $15 million against Wells Fargo tied to its COVID-era mortgage forbearance practices. He has obtained multiple favorable published opinions, including In re Gulley (Gulley v. Countrywide), 2010 WL 3342193 (Bankr. N.D. Tex. 2010), and a March 2026 Fourth Circuit decision affirming denial of arbitration in an automatic-stay enforcement action against Goldman Sachs — a case in which the National Consumer Bankruptcy Rights Center and NACBA filed supporting amicus briefs. These are independently documented case results, not solely the firm’s own marketing claims.

Client Voice

Awesome Attorneys did not locate individually attributed, third-party-verified consumer reviews for the firm specifically; its practice model — pursuing large class actions and complex individual litigation rather than routine filings — generates fewer consumer star-ratings than a high-volume filing practice, even though its litigation outcomes are independently documented through published court decisions.

Beyond the Courtroom

Bartholow is a Master of the John C. Ford American Inn of Court and has taught extensively at national consumer-bankruptcy training programs, including as a regular co-teacher alongside O. Max Gardner III at Max Gardner’s Bankruptcy Boot Camp and Litigation Skills Seminars — a widely respected national training program for consumer bankruptcy litigators. He has spoken at NACBA members-only conferences across multiple years (2010, 2011, 2013, 2014), the American Bankruptcy Institute’s Annual Spring Meeting, and represented NACBA at a Mortgage Mini-Conference held by the Rules Committee of the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges in Portland, Oregon in 2012. His written work has been published in the American Bankruptcy Institute’s monthly Journal.

Recognition

Theodore Bartholow received NACBA’s Distinguished Service Award in 2016, a national honor from the leading consumer bankruptcy attorneys’ association, and was named a Texas Super Lawyer for 2025 and 2026, a peer-nomination-based recognition. No Texas Board of Legal Specialization certification was located for either named attorney as of this profile’s research; the firm’s professional standing rests on its documented litigation track record and national training and speaking involvement rather than a TBLS credential.

Texas Legal Backdrop

Violations of the automatic bankruptcy stay under 11 U.S.C. § 362(k) allow an individual debtor to recover actual damages, including attorney’s fees and costs, and in appropriate circumstances punitive damages, when a creditor willfully continues collection activity after a bankruptcy filing — the specific type of claim underlying much of this firm’s litigation work. The federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and its Texas counterpart, the Texas Debt Collection Act (Texas Finance Code Chapter 392), provide separate but overlapping consumer protections against abusive debt-collection conduct. None of this is legal advice; a consumer debtor who believes a creditor violated the automatic stay or debt-collection law during their bankruptcy case should consult counsel promptly given applicable limitations periods.

Awesome Attorneys Assessment

Kellett & Bartholow’s differentiator is a genuinely rare practice model backed by concrete, independently verifiable results: rather than filing bankruptcy petitions, the firm litigates against the financial institutions that violate consumer debtors’ rights within the bankruptcy process, and the $185 million and $15 million Wells Fargo class settlements, along with published opinions like Gulley v. Countrywide and the 2026 Fourth Circuit win, are checkable outcomes rather than marketing assertions.

The honest trade-off is scope: this firm does not file routine Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 petitions for consumers who simply need debt relief — a debtor looking to file bankruptcy in the ordinary course needs a different kind of firm entirely, and would be better served by a filing-focused consumer bankruptcy practice. Kellett & Bartholow is the right fit specifically for a debtor whose creditor has crossed a legal line — violating the automatic stay, engaging in abusive collection, or committing mortgage-servicing violations — during or around a bankruptcy case.

Methodology & Sourcing

This profile was compiled from the firm’s own website (kblawtx.com), Theodore Bartholow’s detailed attorney biography page, NACBA convention speaker biographies, Martindale-Hubbell and Super Lawyers attorney profiles, State Bar of Texas licensing records, and a published Fourth Circuit decision summary from the National Consumer Bankruptcy Rights Center. Settlement figures and case citations are drawn from the attorney’s own published biography and independently reported case decisions, and are attributed accordingly.

Publisher Disclosure & Independence Notice

This profile is an independent editorial article published by Awesome Attorneys. Awesome Attorneys does not endorse, recommend, or warrant any lawyer or law firm profiled on this site, and inclusion in this series is not paid placement. Facts in this profile were researched from public sources as described in the Methodology & Sourcing section and are current only as of the research date.