Roberta Kaplan, the prominent New York attorney who successfully argued before the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act, has left Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to form a litigation boutique.
Her new firm, Kaplan and Co. LLP, includes four lawyers for now, including partner Julie Fink, previously in-house counsel at Pfizer Inc. and a Paul Weiss attorney; senior counsel John Quinn, a former litigation associate of Sullivan & Cromwell; and associate Rachel Tuchman, a recent Yale Law School graduate. It will have offices in Manhattan's Empire State Building.
Kaplan said she left Paul Weiss because she saw a market need for a nimble law firm where she would have more flexibility in negotiating billing rates and using flexible fee arrangements. She also said the new firm s commitment to social justice has allowed her to attract top talent.
I had a sense over the past five years that the largest firms, Paul Weiss included, are having a harder and harder time in terms of business-to-business litigation, she said. The marketplace has changed such that a lot of the commercial litigation practice has been taken up by smaller firms, which are doing cases that Paul Weiss would have done 20 years ago, she said.
At a different firm, with a smaller, more flexible arrangement, I could be doing more of that work, she said. There s a real hunger or demand in the market for firms that can do this work in a more flexible and more efficient way.
Kaplan, 50, who left Paul Weiss last week, said she will continue to work on the vast majority of cases she had at Paul Weiss, including some as co-counsel with the firm.
Laura Buckland, vice president and chief litigation and IP counsel at T-Mobile USA, said the flexibility on rates and alternative fee arrangements is an absolute bonus and critical. Kaplan will continue representing T-Mobile USA in a case now on appeal before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
It s a great opportunity to have a commercial litigation boutique firm coming out of New York with the kind of deep experience that Robbie and her team have, Buckland said. Smaller firms can be more nimble and are often more efficient in how they work. It s good for us have a variety of places we can go for legal services.
A mission of Kaplan and Co. will be to meld a private commercial practice with public interest practice, said Kaplan, who will continue litigating LGBT civil rights and social justice cases and continue representing pro bono clients such as the Campaign for Southern Equality. Unfortunately, there s no shortage of social justice issues to litigate, she said.