Roberta Kaplan, the well-known trial lawyer who successfully represented writer E. Jean Carroll in her high-profile lawsuits against former President Donald Trump, is set to launch a new boutique law firm alongside three former prosecutors. Kaplan is departing Kaplan Hecker & Fink, a firm she co-founded seven years ago, to establish Kaplan Martin. The new firm will concentrate on civil litigation, internal corporate investigations, and strategic advisory services.
Tim Martin, another partner from Kaplan Hecker & Fink, will join Kaplan in this new venture. Kaplan indicated that the swift and substantial growth of Kaplan Hecker & Fink, which now has over 100 lawyers and staff, prompted her to seek a smaller and nimbler setup. “It’s really that the firm grew rapidly, which is great, but it grew in size and complexity beyond what I had in mind and I wanted to get back to something nimbler,” Kaplan said in an interview.
The new firm, Kaplan Martin, will also include Steven M. Cohen and Mitra Hormozi as founding partners. Cohen and Hormozi both have extensive backgrounds as federal prosecutors and close ties to former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. Kaplan acknowledged her own past involvement with Cuomo during his sexual harassment scandal, which led to her resignation from Time’s Up, an organization that supports victims of sexual harassment.
Kaplan’s legal career has been marked by significant victories, including her 2013 Supreme Court triumph for same-sex couples and the recent defamation and sexual abuse lawsuits against Donald Trump. While some of her litigation efforts, such as a 2018 lawsuit against Trump’s company, did not achieve the desired outcomes, her successes have solidified her reputation as a formidable litigator. More details about Kaplan’s new firm can be found in the original report.