Roberta A. (“Robbie”) Kaplan is a renowned litigator with decades of experience in commercial, higher education, and civil rights litigation. Chambers has described her as “a modern-day legal giant. A towering intellect and a genius in court, with the instincts of a street fighter.” Robbie has the distinction of beating Donald J. Trump, twice, in her representation of writer E. Jean Carroll, who obtained jury verdicts of $5 million and $83.3 million for sexual battery and defamation—in each case, after the jury deliberated for less than three hours.
Robbie represented Edith Windsor in the landmark case United States v. Windsor, which invalidated a key provision of the Defense of Marriage Act. Professor Laurence Tribe of Harvard Law School observed that he could not “think of any Supreme Court decision in history that has ever created so rapid and broad a lower-court groundswell in a single direction.” Following a four-week trial, Robbie obtained a landmark $26 million verdict on behalf of her clients against twenty-four neo-Nazi and white supremacist entities and leaders responsible for organizing the radical- and religious-based violence in Charlottesville. Robbie obtained a historic settlement agreement with Florida that effectively nullified the most dangerous and discriminatory impacts of the State’s “Don’t Say Gay” law. And most recently, Robbie represented the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in successfully fending off ten separate challenges to New York’s groundbreaking congestion pricing program, which is the first of its kind in the United States.
Sharon Nelles, head of litigation at Sullivan & Cromwell, is quoted in a profile explaining that Robbie “just sees things from a thousand different angles all at once, it’s hard to keep up with her thought processes. She knows her law cold, she knows the Constitution cold and she’s not afraid, if she sees a problem, to go figure out some law that’s going to allow her to fix it. She’ll find it.” Stephen Gillers, professor at New York University School of Law, told Bloomberg Law that Robbie is “a lawyer that you don’t want to see opposing you.” Another client describes Robbie as someone who “eats bullies for lunch.”
The Washington Post has described Robbie as “a brash and original strategist, with neither a gift for patience nor silence, a crusader for underdogs who has won almost every legal accolade imaginable.” Among the numerous honors and recognitions Robbie has received, she was named to Forbes’ list of “America’s Top 200 Lawyers,” recognized as the 2020 “Attorney of the Year” by the New York Law Journal, received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the New York Law Journal, and has been honored as “Litigator of the Year” by The American Lawyer, “Lawyer of the Year” by Above the Law, and “Most Innovative Lawyer of the Year” by The Financial Times. The Financial Times noted that “the judges had little trouble picking just one of them to win the award for most innovative individual – itself an innovation for the report this year. Robbie Kaplan has been involved in some of the most important legal developments of recent years.” Robbie has consistently been listed as one of the top litigators and top women litigators in the country, as well as one of the top lawyers in New York.