Final fall, senior companions at Kaplan Hecker & Fink, a New York legislation agency identified for championing liberal causes, made a fateful determination: They have been going to sideline their hard-charging and crusading founder, Roberta A. Kaplan.
The reign of one of many nation’s most distinguished attorneys was coming to an finish.
Ms. Kaplan was already well-known when she based her legislation agency in 2017, having gained a landmark Supreme Court docket case that paved the best way for marriage equality for homosexual People. The agency quickly gained nationwide prominence due to her management within the #MeToo motion, and extra just lately for high-profile victories towards white supremacists and former President Donald J. Trump.
However these triumphs couldn’t overcome an uncomfortable actuality, based on folks accustomed to the legislation agency’s inside dynamics.
Within the eyes of lots of her colleagues, together with the agency’s two different named companions, Ms. Kaplan’s poor therapy of different attorneys — starting from micromanagement to vulgar insults and humiliating private assaults — was impairing the boutique agency she had constructed, the folks stated. For one factor, they stated, she was jeopardizing its potential to recruit and retain worthwhile staff.
Ms. Kaplan and different companions had additionally clashed over problems with administration and technique, and a few of her colleagues have been pissed off by the difficulties of reaching consensus together with her, a number of folks stated.
Ms. Kaplan was advised final fall that it had turn out to be untenable for her to stay on the agency’s administration committee — a pointy rebuke for a founding accomplice. She agreed to step down from the committee. The choice started a monthslong chain of occasions that culminated this week with Ms. Kaplan’s announcement that she was leaving Kaplan Hecker to begin a brand new agency.
The seemingly abrupt departure of a authorized star — a homosexual girl who had turn out to be a heroic determine to many on the left for her willingness to tackle highly effective males like Mr. Trump and Elon Musk — surprised the authorized neighborhood. Nevertheless it had been years within the making, based on interviews with greater than 30 present and former colleagues, purchasers and others.
Ms. Kaplan has tirelessly constructed a model because the go-to lawyer for just about each liberal trigger. This yr alone, she gained an $83 million jury verdict towards Mr. Trump for his having defamed the author E. Jean Carroll; efficiently defended researchers sued by Mr. Musk’s X Company; secured a settlement for folks difficult the Florida legislation that critics nicknamed “Don’t Say Homosexual”; and represented President Biden’s daughter Ashley in a prison investigation into who stole her diary.
Many former staff stated they have been pleased with the work they’d completed and admired Ms. Kaplan’s fearless pursuit of huge targets. However additionally they stated the office atmosphere she had presided over might be insufferable.
This went past regular gripes about robust bosses. Ms. Kaplan’s conduct was at instances such a difficulty {that a} high lawyer at one other agency who was her co-counsel in a case reprimanded her over her conduct, and a progressive authorized coalition nixed her from an inventory of candidates for federal judgeships due to her repute for mistreating staff, based on attorneys accustomed to each episodes.
Ms. Kaplan is hardly the one high-powered lawyer with a repute for being a tough boss. Loads of male attorneys have engaged in comparable conduct and gotten away with it.
However Kaplan Hecker & Fink was based on the premise that it could be a “values-driven” legislation agency freed from the macho nastiness that traditionally characterised lots of the nation’s elite companies. Ms. Kaplan has stated she created it “on the precept that there all the time have to be somebody to face as much as a bully.”
Ms. Kaplan, 57, declined interview requests. In an announcement to The New York Occasions hours earlier than she introduced her departure on Wednesday, she trumpeted her work towards “a few of the world’s largest bullies” however acknowledged that “there are individuals who don’t like me, which comes with the territory, significantly when you find yourself a lady.”
In response to questions on her office demeanor, the agency’s attorneys, Christopher J. Clark and Virginia F. Tent, accused The Occasions of trafficking in “the hackneyed trope of the highly effective skilled girl as shrewish, abrasive and vindictive.” They famous that in inside opinions, her colleagues “described Ms. Kaplan as fostering a way of help and transparency and making her colleagues really feel heard and supported in her groups, along with being heat, considerate and empathetic.”
They added that “Ms. Kaplan’s presence and work on the agency was a major driver of the agency’s recruitment of authorized expertise.”
Sean Hecker and Julie Fink, the 2 high companions remaining on the agency, stated in an announcement that “Robbie has made immeasurable contributions to the agency, we proceed to have mutual respect for her, and we stay up for persevering with to collaborate together with her.”
Whereas Ms. Kaplan’s new and outdated companies say they plan to have a cooperative relationship, they’re already vying for purchasers and personnel — and to regulate the narrative about her exit.
A few of Ms. Kaplan’s defenders imagine that her outdated colleagues are leaking damaging details about her with a purpose to undercut her new agency earlier than it’s even off the bottom. Her detractors say the authorized world ought to find out about her conduct.
Jostling to Be part of
Rising up outdoors Cleveland, Ms. Kaplan had mapped out her future by age 12: an Ivy League school, adopted by a Manhattan legislation faculty, culminating in a job at a prestigious legislation agency the place she would “lastly get to meet my dream of litigating high-profile, cutting-edge industrial circumstances,” as Ms. Kaplan put it in her 2015 memoir. (“Sure,” she added, “that was really my dream.”)
Positive sufficient, Ms. Kaplan graduated from Harvard after which Columbia Regulation College. At 31, she made accomplice at Paul Weiss, the place she represented purchasers like JPMorgan Chase and T-Cell.
Like many different bold younger company attorneys, Ms. Kaplan was relentless in her pursuit of success — a lot in order that her future spouse, Rachel Lavine, a Democratic operative, as soon as offended her on an early date by evaluating her to a Bolshevik keen to spill blood for the sake of victory.
Ms. Lavine started pushing her towards political advocacy, based on Ms. Kaplan’s memoir, “Then Comes Marriage.” In 2013, she gained a landmark lawsuit that she had introduced on behalf of a lesbian who didn’t need to pay taxes on her lifeless accomplice’s property. The Supreme Court docket used the case to strike down a key provision of the Protection of Marriage Act, paving the best way for the nationwide proper to same-sex marriage.
Ms. Kaplan was now not content material simply litigating industrial circumstances. When a hoped-for job in a hoped-for Hillary Clinton administration didn’t pan out, Ms. Kaplan seized the anti-Trump second and created her personal legislation agency: Kaplan & Firm.
Ms. Kaplan’s timing was impeccable. She pitched her agency as a progressive bastion that will mix trailblazing public curiosity apply with civil and prison litigation. The purpose was to win massive rewards for worthy causes whereas additionally making its attorneys wealthy. The cherry on high: The agency was run by a authorized big in a area largely bereft of feminine leaders, a lot much less homosexual ladies.
Liberal attorneys jostled to hitch.
The agency’s start-up nature made it much less bureaucratic, and staff from that point stated Ms. Kaplan might be beneficiant and enjoyable to work for. If she appreciated you, she would possibly share juicy gossip from her social circle, invite you to Shabbat dinner or allow you to land a judicial clerkship.
The purchasers — and the billable hours — flowed in. There have been headline-grabbing public curiosity circumstances, like an bold federal lawsuit towards the white supremacists and others behind the notorious “Unite the Proper” rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017. And there have been marquee company purchasers like Uber, Airbnb and Pfizer.
Earlier than lengthy Ms. Kaplan added Mr. Hecker, a white-collar prison protection lawyer, to the title of the agency, alongside together with her co-founding accomplice, Ms. Fink.
Quickly they arrange store excessive within the Empire State Constructing. Ms. Kaplan adorned her workplace with images of her posing with former President Barack Obama and the Clintons and named a convention room after Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
The Meatball Incident
From the beginning, Ms. Kaplan’s conduct alienated a few of her new hires.
“Robbie was a screamer, she yelled loads, and that was not an expertise I had earlier than,” stated Christopher Greene, who had joined from the powerhouse legislation agency Sullivan & Cromwell. “Now it was a part of my everyday, and the workplace wasn’t massive.”
Many former staff recalled listening to Ms. Kaplan berating colleagues for his or her supposed incompetence and lack of intelligence. (Most would converse solely on the situation that The Occasions not determine them, citing worry {of professional} repercussions.)
Within the midst of the #MeToo motion, Ms. Kaplan advised colleagues that she was too good to ever have been sexually assaulted, based on Seguin Strohmeier, one other early rent, and two different former associates who additionally heard the remarks.
Ms. Kaplan’s attorneys stated in a letter to The Occasions that she had by no means “recommended that anybody will be ‘too good’ to be sexually assaulted as a result of that’s clearly not true.”
5 staff on the agency recalled inappropriate feedback Ms. Kaplan made about colleagues’ appears. As soon as, she advised a feminine affiliate that the affiliate was extra suited to “again of home” work due to her look. One other time, Ms. Kaplan stated the identical affiliate was an excessive amount of of a “dyke” to clerk for the Supreme Court docket, Ms. Strohmeier recalled. Different instances she used gender-specific insults.
Ms. Kaplan’s attorneys denied that she criticized staff’ appearances and stated she “is hardly the one skilled trial lawyer susceptible to salty language at instances.”
Many former staff recalled Ms. Kaplan’s publicly berating case managers, who’re younger, low-ranking staff. As soon as she verbally attacked a case supervisor who disobeyed her command to not embrace meatballs in a pizza order. Ms. Kaplan’s fury was so exceptional {that a} lawyer took notes, which The Occasions reviewed. The notes described the meatball incident as one of some examples wherein Ms. Kaplan “publicly derided” the case supervisor “each to her face and behind her again.”
Mr. Clark and Ms. Tent, the attorneys for Kaplan Hecker, stated this was inaccurate. “To the extent Ms. Kaplan gave instruction about what meals to order, it was usually to order an excessive amount of fairly than too little meals,” they wrote.
To the frustration of some colleagues, Ms. Kaplan at instances insisted that she assessment upfront sure emails that companions deliberate to ship externally. Every so often, she grew to become irate when this edict was violated.
An Open Secret
By the 2020 election, Ms. Kaplan’s conduct had turn out to be one thing of an open secret within the authorized neighborhood. That fall, a coalition of progressive teams ready an inventory of ultimate candidates for judicial nominations to ship to the incoming Biden administration. Ms. Kaplan was on an early model of the listing, based on a duplicate reviewed by The Occasions.
However earlier than it was despatched, Ms. Kaplan’s title was deleted on the behest of Molly Coleman, a lawyer and a founding father of the Folks’s Parity Undertaking, whose objectives included eliminating harassment and discrimination in legislation. Ms. Coleman stated in an interview that she had heard from attorneys at Kaplan Hecker & Fink who wished to depart due to office circumstances. She advised different folks within the coalition that if Ms. Kaplan was nominated for a judgeship, her group would publicly oppose her. She stated nobody had objected to eradicating Ms. Kaplan from the listing.
Ms. Kaplan’s attorneys stated she couldn’t remark as she was not conscious of being on any such listing and didn’t know if she had been taken off one.
Close to the tip of 2021, Ms. Kaplan’s lawsuit towards the white supremacists in Charlottesville went to trial. It was a high-stress atmosphere; Ms. Kaplan was focused with antisemitic threats. She advised some attorneys on the multi-firm group that they didn’t deserve their legislation levels. She threatened to smash one’s profession.
Because the trial was ending, Ms. Kaplan’s co-counsel from Paul Weiss, the veteran trial lawyer Karen Dunn, referred to as out Ms. Kaplan’s conduct throughout a heated assembly, saying she had by no means seen one other lawyer deal with folks so poorly, based on attorneys who witnessed the argument.
Ms. Dunn declined to remark. Ms. Kaplan’s attorneys denied that the incident had taken place and disputed the accounts of her conduct in the course of the trial.
Ms. Kaplan and her group gained the Charlottesville case: The jury discovered the “Unite the Proper” rally organizers accountable for greater than $25 million in damages. The attorneys have been pleased with the win. However at the very least 5 of them later left Kaplan Hecker & Fink.
A Signature Challenge
When the #MeToo motion erupted in October 2017, only some months after the agency was based, Ms Kaplan rapidly made it a signature difficulty. She lobbied for authorized modifications that will make it simpler for survivors to sue their assailants and finally grew to become the chairwoman of Time’s Up, the celebrity-studded nonprofit group that fought sexual harassment within the office, and co-founded its authorized protection fund.
However Ms. Kaplan wasn’t representing solely victims. She defended Goldman Sachs and Riot Video games in lawsuits associated to intercourse discrimination. She additionally helped corporations like Uber, the guardian firm of Pornhub and Vice Media enhance their practices within the wake of sexual misconduct scandals. A former senior worker stated the agency’s pitch to such purchasers was that Ms. Kaplan’s credibility on #MeToo would assist them deal with their crises, which made some on the agency uncomfortable.
“It’s totally in step with the agency’s work on this area to help investigative and reform tasks,” Ms. Kaplan’s attorneys stated.
There was just one event when the strain between Ms. Kaplan’s public advocacy and personal authorized apply threatened to turn out to be a major problem.
In 2020, when Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York confronted allegations of sexual harassment, he turned to Ms. Kaplan for recommendation on the right way to confront the disaster. Ms. Kaplan’s function grew to become public months later when the New York lawyer common launched a report detailing the investigation of Mr. Cuomo’s actions.
The backlash was intense. Greater than 150 victims and advocates signed an open letter to the Time’s Up board accusing it of prioritizing “its proximity to energy over mission.” Ms. Kaplan quickly resigned as chairwoman.
In public, she appeared to climate the fallout. Contained in the agency, although, the fracas over Ms. Kaplan’s entanglement with Mr. Cuomo continued to rankle, inflicting rising doubts amongst some attorneys about her judgment.
A minimum of one consumer in a #MeToo case reached out to the agency, writing in an e mail reviewed by The Occasions: “Most distressing is the belief that Kaplan Hecker could also be utilizing professional bono circumstances like mine, and particularly circumstances representing sexual violence victims, with a purpose to launder the agency’s repute and buy credibility with which they’ll extra successfully market themselves as paid representatives for perpetrators and enablers.”
Ms. Kaplan’s attorneys stated the consumer who had despatched the e-mail stored Ms. Kaplan as a lawyer. They added that the agency did an “extraordinary” quantity of professional bono work.
Agreeing to Step Down
It was shortly earlier than Thanksgiving final yr when Mr. Hecker and Ms. Fink, in addition to different companions on the agency, knowledgeable Ms. Kaplan that it was now not viable for her to stay on the administration committee that oversaw and made essential selections concerning the agency.
The companions remained fearful about her therapy of colleagues, and so they considered her as enjoying an obstructionist function that was interfering with key selections on the agency, based on folks accustomed to the inner dynamics.
Mr. Hecker and Ms. Fink acknowledged that pushing Ms. Kaplan off the committee was primarily sidelining her and would possibly lead her to stop the agency, based on an individual accustomed to the decision-making.
Ms. Kaplan agreed to step down from the committee. She framed the choice as voluntary and famous that it gave her extra time to arrange for the fast-approaching defamation trial that will pit her consumer Ms. Carroll towards Mr. Trump.
By the point the trial obtained underway in Decrease Manhattan in January, Ms. Kaplan had already begun mulling her departure. The agency had grown rapidly, and he or she longed for a “return to my roots,” as she later put it, with a smaller and extra targeted legislation agency.
It wasn’t till months later, in April, that lots of the companions knew that she can be leaving the agency that she created seven years earlier.
On Monday, her title will likely be faraway from the legislation agency, which can now be referred to as Hecker Fink.
Matthew Goldstein, Benjamin Mullin and David Enrich contributed reporting. Kirsten Noyes and Susan C. Beachy contributed analysis.
