Last fall, senior companions at Kaplan Hecker & Fink, a New York regulation 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 regulation agency in 2017, having gained a landmark Supreme Court case that paved the best way for marriage equality for homosexual Americans. The agency quickly gained nationwide prominence due to her management within the #MeToo motion, and extra not too long ago for high-profile victories in opposition to white supremacists and former President Donald J. Trump.
But these triumphs couldn’t overcome an uncomfortable actuality, in accordance with folks accustomed to the regulation agency’s inside dynamics.
In the eyes of a lot of her colleagues, together with the agency’s two different named companions, Ms. Kaplan’s poor remedy 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 capability to recruit and retain helpful staff.
Ms. Kaplan and different companions had additionally clashed over problems with administration and technique, and a few of her colleagues have been annoyed by the difficulties of reaching consensus along with her, a number of folks mentioned.
Ms. Kaplan was advised final fall that it had turn into untenable for her to stay on the agency’s administration committee — a pointy rebuke for a founding associate. She agreed to step down from the committee. The determination 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 into a heroic determine to many on the left for her willingness to tackle highly effective males like Mr. Trump and Elon Musk — shocked the authorized group. But it had been years within the making, in accordance 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 gained an $83 million jury verdict in opposition to Mr. Trump for his having defamed the author E. Jean Carroll; efficiently defended researchers sued by Mr. Musk’s X Corporation; secured a settlement for folks difficult the Florida regulation that critics nicknamed “Don’t Say Gay”; and represented President Biden’s daughter Ashley in a legal investigation into who stole her diary.
Many former staff mentioned they have been pleased with the work they’d carried out and admired Ms. Kaplan’s fearless pursuit of massive targets. But additionally they mentioned the office atmosphere she had presided over might be insufferable.
This went past regular gripes about powerful bosses. Ms. Kaplan’s conduct was at occasions 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 a listing of candidates for federal judgeships due to her status for mistreating staff, in accordance with attorneys accustomed to each episodes.
Ms. Kaplan is hardly the one high-powered legal professional with a status for being a troublesome boss. Plenty of male attorneys have engaged in comparable conduct and gotten away with it.
But Kaplan Hecker & Fink was based on the premise that it could be a “values-driven” regulation 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 all the time should be somebody to face as much as a bully.”
Ms. Kaplan, 57, declined interview requests. In a press release to The New York Times hours earlier than she introduced her departure on Wednesday, she trumpeted her work in opposition to “a number of the world’s greatest bullies” however acknowledged that “there are individuals who don’t like me, which comes with the territory, notably 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 Times 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 assist 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 big driver of the agency’s recruitment of authorized expertise.”
Sean Hecker and Julie Fink, the 2 high 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 along with her.”
While Ms. Kaplan’s new and previous companies say they plan to have a cooperative relationship, they’re already vying for purchasers and personnel — and to manage the narrative about her exit.
Some of Ms. Kaplan’s defenders consider that her previous colleagues are leaking damaging details about her in an effort to undercut her new agency earlier than it’s even off the bottom. Her detractors say the authorized world ought to learn about her conduct.
Jostling to Join
Growing up exterior Cleveland, Ms. Kaplan had mapped out her future by age 12: an Ivy League faculty, adopted by a Manhattan regulation college, culminating in a job at a prestigious regulation 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. (“Yes,” she added, “that was truly my dream.”)
Sure sufficient, Ms. Kaplan graduated from Harvard after which Columbia Law School. At 31, she made associate at Paul Weiss, the place she represented purchasers like JPMorgan Chase and T-Mobile.
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, in accordance with 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 associate’s property. The Supreme Court used the case to strike down a key provision of the Defense 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 regulation agency: Kaplan & Company.
Ms. Kaplan’s timing was impeccable. She pitched her agency as a progressive bastion that may mix trailblazing public curiosity apply with civil and legal litigation. The aim was to win large 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 girls.
Liberal attorneys jostled to hitch.
The agency’s start-up nature made it much less bureaucratic, and staff from that point mentioned Ms. Kaplan might be beneficiant and enjoyable to work for. If she favored you, she may share juicy gossip from her social circle, invite you to Shabbat dinner or assist you to 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 in opposition to the white supremacists and others behind the notorious “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017. And there have been marquee company purchasers like Uber, Airbnb and Pfizer.
Before lengthy Ms. Kaplan added Mr. Hecker, a white-collar legal protection lawyer, to the identify of the agency, alongside along with her co-founding associate, Ms. Fink.
Soon they arrange store excessive within the Empire State Building. 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 conduct alienated a few of her new hires.
“Robbie was a screamer, she yelled rather a lot, and that was not an expertise I had earlier than,” mentioned Christopher Greene, who had joined from the powerhouse regulation agency Sullivan & Cromwell. “Now it was a part of my each day, and the workplace wasn’t large.”
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 Times not establish them, citing concern {of professional} repercussions.)
In the midst of the #MeToo motion, Ms. Kaplan advised colleagues that she was too sensible to ever have been sexually assaulted, in accordance 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 Times that she had by no means “prompt that anybody may be ‘too sensible’ to be sexually assaulted as a result of that’s clearly not true.”
Five staff on the agency recalled inappropriate feedback Ms. Kaplan made about colleagues’ seems to be. Once, she advised a feminine affiliate that the affiliate was extra suited to “again of home” work due to her look. Another time, Ms. Kaplan mentioned the identical affiliate was an excessive amount of of a “dyke” to clerk for the Supreme Court, Ms. Strohmeier recalled. Other occasions she used gender-specific insults.
Ms. Kaplan’s attorneys denied that she criticized staff’ appearances and mentioned she “is hardly the one skilled trial lawyer liable to salty language at occasions.”
Many former staff recalled Ms. Kaplan’s publicly berating case managers, who’re younger, low-ranking staff. Once she verbally attacked a case supervisor who disobeyed her command to not embrace meatballs in a pizza order. Ms. Kaplan’s fury was so outstanding {that a} lawyer took notes, which The Times reviewed. The notes described the meatball incident as one of some examples by which 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 usually to order an excessive amount of relatively than too little meals,” they wrote.
To the frustration of some colleagues, Ms. Kaplan at occasions insisted that she assessment upfront sure emails that companions deliberate to ship externally. On event, she grew to become irate when this edict was violated.
An Open Secret
By the 2020 election, Ms. Kaplan’s conduct had turn into one thing of an open secret within the authorized group. That fall, a coalition of progressive teams ready a listing of perfect candidates for judicial nominations to ship to the incoming Biden administration. Ms. Kaplan was on an early model of the checklist, in accordance with a duplicate reviewed by The Times.
But 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 People’s Parity Project, whose objectives included eliminating harassment and discrimination in regulation. Ms. Coleman mentioned in an interview that she had heard from attorneys at Kaplan Hecker & Fink who needed 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 mentioned nobody had objected to eradicating Ms. Kaplan from the checklist.
Ms. Kaplan’s attorneys mentioned she couldn’t remark as she was not conscious of being on any such checklist and didn’t know if she had been taken off one.
Near the top of 2021, Ms. Kaplan’s lawsuit in opposition to 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 workforce that they didn’t deserve their regulation levels. She threatened to wreck one’s profession.
As the trial was ending, Ms. Kaplan’s co-counsel from Paul Weiss, the veteran trial lawyer Karen Dunn, known 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, in accordance 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 conduct through the trial.
Ms. Kaplan and her workforce gained the Charlottesville case: The jury discovered the “Unite the Right” rally organizers accountable for greater than $25 million in damages. The attorneys have been pleased with the win. But at the least 5 of them later left Kaplan Hecker & Fink.
A Signature Issue
When the #MeToo motion erupted in October 2017, only some months after the agency was based, Ms Kaplan shortly made it a signature problem. She lobbied for authorized modifications that may make it simpler for survivors to sue their assailants and ultimately 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.
But Ms. Kaplan wasn’t representing solely victims. She defended Goldman Sachs and Riot Games in lawsuits associated to intercourse discrimination. She additionally helped corporations like Uber, the mum or dad 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 is totally in keeping with the agency’s work on this area to assist investigative and reform initiatives,” Ms. Kaplan’s attorneys mentioned.
There was just one event when the stress between Ms. Kaplan’s public advocacy and personal authorized apply threatened to turn into 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 position grew to become 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. More 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. Inside 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 least one shopper in a #MeToo case reached out to the agency, writing in an e mail reviewed by The Times: “Most distressing is the conclusion that Kaplan Hecker could also be utilizing professional bono instances like mine, and specifically instances representing sexual violence victims, in an effort 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 shopper 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 nervous about her remedy of colleagues, and so they seen her as taking part in an obstructionist position that was interfering with key selections on the agency, in accordance with folks accustomed to the inner dynamics.
Mr. Hecker and Ms. Fink acknowledged that pushing Ms. Kaplan off the committee was basically sidelining her and may lead her to stop the agency, in accordance with 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 organize for the fast-approaching defamation trial that may pit her shopper Ms. Carroll in opposition to Mr. Trump.
By the time the trial received underway in Lower Manhattan in January, Ms. Kaplan had already begun mulling her departure. The agency had grown shortly, and he or she longed for a “return to my roots,” as she later put it, with a smaller and extra centered regulation 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 might be faraway from the regulation 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.
