Final fall, senior companions at Kaplan Hecker & Fink, a New York legislation agency identified for championing liberal causes, made a fateful resolution: 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 received a landmark Supreme Court docket case that paved the best way for marriage equality for homosexual Individuals. The agency quickly gained nationwide prominence due to her management within the #MeToo motion, and extra lately for high-profile victories towards white supremacists and former President Donald J. Trump.
However these triumphs couldn’t overcome an uncomfortable actuality, in line with folks aware of the legislation agency’s inner dynamics.
Within the eyes of a lot 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 mentioned. For one factor, they mentioned, she was jeopardizing its skill to recruit and retain priceless workers.
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 attaining consensus together with her, a number of folks mentioned.
Ms. Kaplan was instructed final fall that it had grow to be untenable for her to stay on the agency’s administration committee — a pointy rebuke for a founding companion. 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 grow 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. But it surely had been years within the making, in line with 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 received 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 felony investigation into who stole her diary.
Many former workers mentioned they have been pleased with the work that they had completed and admired Ms. Kaplan’s fearless pursuit of massive targets. However additionally they mentioned the office setting she had presided over may very well be insufferable.
This went past regular gripes about powerful bosses. Ms. Kaplan’s habits was at occasions such a difficulty {that a} prime 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 status for mistreating workers, in line with attorneys aware of each episodes.
Ms. Kaplan is hardly the one high-powered legal professional with a status for being a troublesome boss. Loads of male attorneys have engaged in comparable habits and gotten away with it.
However Kaplan Hecker & Fink was based on the premise that it will be a “values-driven” legislation agency freed from the macho nastiness that traditionally characterised lots of the nation’s elite companies. Ms. Kaplan has mentioned she created it “on the precept that there at all times should be somebody to face as much as a bully.”
Ms. Kaplan, 57, declined interview requests. In a press release to The New York Instances hours earlier than she introduced her departure on Wednesday, she trumpeted her work towards “a number of the world’s largest bullies” however acknowledged that “there are individuals who don’t like me, which comes with the territory, notably if 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 Instances of trafficking in “the hackneyed trope of the highly effective skilled girl as shrewish, abrasive and vindictive.” They famous that in inner 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 prime companions remaining on the agency, mentioned in a press release that “Robbie has made immeasurable contributions to the agency, we proceed to have mutual respect for her, and we look ahead to 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 consider that her outdated colleagues are leaking damaging details about her so as 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 habits.
Jostling to Be part of
Rising up exterior Cleveland, Ms. Kaplan had mapped out her future by age 12: an Ivy League school, adopted by a Manhattan legislation college, 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 instances,” 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 Legislation College. At 31, she made companion at Paul Weiss, the place she represented purchasers like JPMorgan Chase and T-Cellular.
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 prepared to spill blood for the sake of victory.
Ms. Lavine started pushing her towards political advocacy, in line with Ms. Kaplan’s memoir, “Then Comes Marriage.” In 2013, she received a landmark lawsuit that she had introduced on behalf of a lesbian who didn’t wish to pay taxes on her lifeless companion’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 instances. 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 follow with civil and felony litigation. The aim was to win massive rewards for worthy causes whereas additionally making its attorneys wealthy. The cherry on prime: The agency was run by a authorized big in a subject largely bereft of feminine leaders, a lot much less homosexual ladies.
Liberal attorneys jostled to affix.
The agency’s start-up nature made it much less bureaucratic, and workers from that point mentioned Ms. Kaplan may very well 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 assist you land a judicial clerkship.
The purchasers — and the billable hours — flowed in. There have been headline-grabbing public curiosity instances, 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 felony protection lawyer, to the identify of the agency, alongside together with her co-founding companion, Ms. Fink.
Quickly they arrange store excessive within the Empire State Constructing. Ms. Kaplan embellished 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 habits alienated a few of her new hires.
“Robbie was a screamer, she yelled loads, and that was not an expertise I had earlier than,” mentioned Christopher Greene, who had joined from the powerhouse legislation agency Sullivan & Cromwell. “Now it was a part of my each day, and the workplace wasn’t massive.”
Many former workers recalled listening to Ms. Kaplan berating colleagues for his or her supposed incompetence and lack of intelligence. (Most would communicate solely on the situation that The Instances not determine them, citing concern {of professional} repercussions.)
Within the midst of the #MeToo motion, Ms. Kaplan instructed colleagues that she was too good to ever have been sexually assaulted, in line with Seguin Strohmeier, one other early rent, and two different former associates who additionally heard the remarks.
Ms. Kaplan’s attorneys mentioned in a letter to The Instances that she had by no means “recommended that anybody could be ‘too good’ to be sexually assaulted as a result of that’s clearly not true.”
5 workers on the agency recalled inappropriate feedback Ms. Kaplan made about colleagues’ appears. As soon as, she instructed a feminine affiliate that the affiliate was extra suited to “again of home” work due to her look. One other time, Ms. Kaplan mentioned the identical affiliate was an excessive amount of of a “dyke” to clerk for the Supreme Court docket, Ms. Strohmeier recalled. Different occasions she used gender-specific insults.
Ms. Kaplan’s attorneys denied that she criticized workers’ appearances and mentioned she “is hardly the one skilled trial lawyer susceptible to salty language at occasions.”
Many former workers recalled Ms. Kaplan’s publicly berating case managers, who’re younger, low-ranking workers. As soon as she verbally attacked a case supervisor who disobeyed her command to not embody meatballs in a pizza order. Ms. Kaplan’s fury was so outstanding {that a} lawyer took notes, which The Instances 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, mentioned this was inaccurate. “To the extent Ms. Kaplan gave instruction about what meals to order, it was sometimes to order an excessive amount of reasonably than too little meals,” they wrote.
To the frustration of some colleagues, Ms. Kaplan at occasions insisted that she overview prematurely sure emails that companions deliberate to ship externally. Every so often, she turned irate when this edict was violated.
An Open Secret
By the 2020 election, Ms. Kaplan’s conduct had grow to be one thing of an open secret within the authorized neighborhood. That fall, a coalition of progressive teams ready an inventory of superb candidates for judicial nominations to ship to the incoming Biden administration. Ms. Kaplan was on an early model of the listing, in line with a duplicate reviewed by The Instances.
However earlier than it was despatched, Ms. Kaplan’s identify was deleted on the behest of Molly Coleman, a lawyer and a founding father of the Individuals’s Parity Venture, whose targets included eliminating harassment and discrimination in legislation. Ms. Coleman mentioned in an interview that she had heard from attorneys at Kaplan Hecker & Fink who wished to depart due to office situations. She instructed different folks within the coalition that if Ms. Kaplan was nominated for a judgeship, her group would publicly oppose her. She mentioned nobody had objected to eradicating Ms. Kaplan from the listing.
Ms. Kaplan’s attorneys mentioned 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 top of 2021, Ms. Kaplan’s lawsuit towards the white supremacists in Charlottesville went to trial. It was a high-stress setting; Ms. Kaplan was focused with antisemitic threats. She instructed some attorneys on the multi-firm workforce that they didn’t deserve their legislation levels. She threatened to destroy one’s profession.
Because the trial was ending, Ms. Kaplan’s co-counsel from Paul Weiss, the veteran trial lawyer Karen Dunn, known as out Ms. Kaplan’s habits throughout a heated assembly, saying she had by no means seen one other lawyer deal with folks so poorly, in line with 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 habits through the trial.
Ms. Kaplan and her workforce received the Charlottesville case: The jury discovered the “Unite the Proper” rally organizers chargeable for greater than $25 million in damages. The attorneys have been pleased with the win. However not less than 5 of them later left Kaplan Hecker & Fink.
A Signature Challenge
When the #MeToo motion erupted in October 2017, just a few months after the agency was based, Ms Kaplan shortly made it a signature challenge. She lobbied for authorized adjustments that will make it simpler for survivors to sue their assailants and finally turned 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 mother or father firm of Pornhub and Vice Media enhance their practices within the wake of sexual misconduct scandals. A former senior worker mentioned 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 house to help investigative and reform tasks,” Ms. Kaplan’s attorneys mentioned.
There was just one event when the stress between Ms. Kaplan’s public advocacy and personal authorized follow threatened to grow 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 how you can confront the disaster. Ms. Kaplan’s position turned public months later when the New York legal professional normal 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 growing doubts amongst some attorneys about her judgment.
At the least one consumer in a #MeToo case reached out to the agency, writing in an electronic mail reviewed by The Instances: “Most distressing is the belief that Kaplan Hecker could also be utilizing professional bono instances like mine, and specifically instances representing sexual violence victims, so as to launder the agency’s status and buy credibility with which they’ll extra successfully market themselves as paid representatives for perpetrators and enablers.”
Ms. Kaplan’s attorneys mentioned 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 in regards to the agency.
The companions remained frightened about her therapy of colleagues, they usually seen her as enjoying an obstructionist position that was interfering with key selections on the agency, in line with folks aware of 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, in line with an individual aware of 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 shortly, and she or he 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 identify shall be faraway from the legislation agency, which can now be often known as Hecker Fink.
Matthew Goldstein, Benjamin Mullin and David Enrich contributed reporting. Kirsten Noyes and Susan C. Beachy contributed analysis.
