PERSON: Roberta Kaplan

Kaplan Hecker & Fink

Founding Partner

Roberta Ann Kaplan (born 1966), also known as Robbie Kaplan, is an American lawyer focusing on commercial litigation and public interest matters. 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. She was a partner at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison before starting her own firm in 2017. In 2018, she co-founded the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund.

Kaplan served as a law clerk for Mark L. Wolf of the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts. While clerking for Judith Kaye, of the New York Court of Appeals, she assisted Kaye with a number of academic articles. Kaplan’s scholarly articles include “Proof versus Prejudice” (2013).

Kaplan joined the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP in 1992 and made partner in 1999. She has served on the board and as chair of the board of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, which created the Roberta Kaplan Legal Center to provide free legal services.

In July 2017 Kaplan left Paul Weiss to start her own practice Kaplan Hecker & Fink LLP, a law firm dedicated to commercial litigation and public interest matters. She departed her firm in June 2024.

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