Robert is a Barrister and Solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand and was a senior research fellow for the Te Mātāhauariki Research Institute at the University of Waikato under the leadership of Judge Michael Brown and Dr Alex Frame. Dr Robert Joseph was the second Māori in New Zealand - and the first Māori male - to graduate with a PhD in Law in 2006.
Robert's research interests are many and varied: the realisation of the Treaty of Waitangi rights and responsibilities, the interface of traditional Māori knowledge systems and western science; internal self-determination rights and responsibilities of Indigenous institutions; Canadian and North American Indigenous studies; treaty processes and post-settlement development; dispute resolution processes, particularly with respect to resolving disputes between different cultures; and Māori and Indigenous Peoples' governance in settler nation-states. He is currently writing a biography of his paternal tupuna (ancestors), who fought at the famous 1864 Battle of Orakau during the Waikato Wars.