User:BC1278/sandbox/Roberta Kaplan

Roberta A. "Robbie" Kaplan (born 1966) is an American lawyer focusing on commercial litigation and public interest matters. She co-founded the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund and is also an adjunct professor of law at Columbia University Law School. She was a partner at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison before starting her own firm in 2017.

Kaplan successfully argued before the Supreme Court of the United States on behalf of LGBT rights activist Edith Windsor, in United States v. Windsor, a landmark decision that invalidated a section of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act and required the federal government to recognize same-sex marriages.

Early life and education
A native of Cleveland, Ohio, Roberta (Robbie) Kaplan graduated from Hawken School in Gates Mills, Ohio, in 1984. Noted LGBT scholar and activist Aaron Belkin was Kaplan's high school friend and prom date. In 1988 she earned an A.B. from Harvard University magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa. She received her J.D. from Columbia Law School in 1991.

Career
After obtaining her law degree, Kaplan served as a law clerk for Judge Mark Wolf of the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts. While clerking for Judge Judith Kaye, of the New York Court of Appeals, she assisted Judge Kaye with a number of academic articles. Her scholarly articles include "Proof versus Prejudice" (2013).

Paul Weiss
Kaplan joined Paul Weiss in 1996 and was made partner in 1999. While at Paul Weiss, her practice focused on securities litigation, internal investigations and white-collar crime. Clients included JP Morgan Chase, Fitch Ratings, the Minnesota Vikings and Airbnb. Kaplan was part of the team that investigated the lead copper for trader Sumitomo Group in 1995 for trying to corner the world market (the Sumitomo copper affair). She was also lead trial attorney representing the California Public Utilities Commission in their opposition to the proposed $13 billion bankruptcy filing of Pacific Gas & Electric to restructure its debt. In 2004, she won the case in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Northern District of California. She also defended Citigroup against securities class action as a result of the research of Wall Street analyst Jack Grubman, a case that settled for $2.65 billion.

United States v. Windsor
In 2009, Kaplan agreed to represent Edie Windsor pro bono. Windsor's wife, Thea Spyer, had died two years after they wed in Canada, leaving Windsor her sole heir. But because their marriage was not recognized under existing U. S. federal law, Windsor received an estate tax bill of $363,053. Windsor went to gay rights advocates seeking redress, but could find no one to take her case. She was referred to Kaplan, who later recalled, "When I heard her story, it took me about five seconds, maybe less, to agree to represent her." Kaplan had been co-counsel on the unsuccessful bid for marriage equality in New York state in 2006.

On June 26, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a 5-4 decision declaring Section 3 of DOMA to be unconstitutional. Subsequent to Windsor, the Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) struck down all remaining state and federal laws against same-sex marriage across the United States. Kaplan wrote about United States v. Windsor in the book Then Comes Marriage.

Kaplan Hecker & Fink
In July 2017, Kaplan founded Kaplan Hecker & Fink LLP, a law firm specializing in commercial litigation and public interest matters.

In 2018, Kaplan and Karen Dunn of the law firm Boies Schiller Flexner, filed a lawsuit against the organizers of the 2017 Unite the Right rally on behalf of 12 victims of violence during the weekend, including four who were injured by a car driven by a white supremacist into counter-protestors. Also in 2018, Kaplan, a co-founder of the Time's Up Legal Defense Fund, agreed to pro bono representation of Moira Donegan, the creator of the Shitty Media Men, who was sued for defamation by Stephen Elliott, one of the men named on the list.

In October 2018, Kaplan filed a class action lawsuit against President Trump and his three eldest children accusing them of using their brand to persuade unsophisticated individuals to invest in fraudulent schemes. The suit was amended in January 2019 to claim that the Trumps also targeted teenagers. An organization funding the lawsuit, the Tesseract Research Center, has ties to Democratic candidates.

In January 2019, Kaplan won a preliminary injunction on behalf of Airbnb preventing New York City from putting into effect a law requiring short-term housing rental platforms to turn over detailed information about each rental and renter, successfully arguing that the law violated Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution protections against unwarranted search and seizures.

Awards and recognition

 * Forty Most Influential Lawyers under Forty, National Law Journal (2005)
 * 100 Most Influential Lawyers, Above The Law (2013)
 * Litigator of the Year, American Lawyer (2013)
 * National Public Service Award, Stanford University (2013)
 * Lifetime Achievement Award, New York Law Journal (2015)

Kaplan has also been awarded honorary doctorates from Johns Hopkins University (2014), the Jewish Theological Seminary (2015), Pace University and Millsaps College.

Personal life
In September 2005, Kaplan married her partner, lawyer and Democratic Party activist Rachel Lavine, in Toronto, Canada. The couple live in New York City with their son.

She is active in her synagogue and is co-chair of the board of the Gay Men's Health Crisis.