Then Comes Marriage

Next week Roberta “Robbie” Kaplan, one of the most powerful attorneys in the country, will visit West Ashley to speak as part of the Charleston Jewish Bookfest at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 13 at Synagogue Emanu-El Sisterhood, located at 5 Windsor Dr.
Co-sponsored by Alliance For Full Acceptance (AFFA) and Synagogue Emanu-El Sisterhood, Kaplan will be discussing her book Then Comes Marriage: United States v. Windsor and the Defeat of DOMA, which was chosen by the L.A. Times as one of the Top 10 books of 2015.
Fellow local attorney Colleen Condon, who also represents West Ashley on County Council, will introduce Kaplan, who has been described as a “litigation superstar,” a “powerhouse corporate litigator,” and a “pressure junkie” who “thrives on looking at the big picture” whether “in the gay-marriage legal fight or high-profile corporate scandals.”
Kaplan is a partner in the litigation department of international law firm Paul-Weiss. In 2015 she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the New York Law Journal. She has also been selected as one of “The 100 Most Influential Lawyers” in the United States as well as a 2013 “Litigator of the Year” by The American Lawyer, the 2013 “Lawyer of the Year” by Above The Law and the 2014 “Most Innovative Lawyer of The Year” by The Financial Times. In choosing Kaplan for this honor, The Financial Times noted that “The 10 most innovative individuals in the North American legal sector are once again an impressive group, as they have been in the four-year history of the U.S. Innovative Lawyers report. Robbie Kaplan has been involved in some of the most important legal developments of recent years.”
Kaplan has extensive experience representing a diverse group of clients such as JP Morgan Chase, Fitch Ratings, Columbia University, the Minnesota Vikings, Airbnb, and Handy in complex, high-profile matters. She has been active in matters involving stock analyst’s recommendations, market timing in mutual funds, reinsurance transactions, structured finance transactions, and key civil rights cases.
Kaplan currently serves as lead counsel for JP Morgan Chase in a multi-billion dollar lender liability proceeding arising out of the bankruptcy of Thornburg Mortgage, where she also acts as “coordinating counsel” for the syndicate of five major lending institutions. Recently, she succeeded in obtaining dismissal of 22 of the original 31 claims in that case.
Kaplan has also represented a number of companies in the “sharing economy.” Kaplan won a victory for Hailo when a New York state court vacated a temporary restraining order that halted implementation of the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission’s taxi e-hail pilot program.
On behalf of her client Airbnb, she succeeded in quashing a subpoena from the New York Attorney General seeking vast amounts of Airbnb’s user data. Kaplan currently represents Handy in litigation involving the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Kaplan recently represented the Minnesota Vikings in connection with its settlement with former NFL punter, Chris Kluwe, who claimed that he was fired from the NFL team because of his outspoken views on same-sex marriage, something Kaplan is quite versed in. She is best known, perhaps, for successfully arguing before the United States Supreme Court on behalf of her client Edith Windsor in the landmark Supreme Court case United States v. Windsor, which was also the basis of Then Comes Marriage.
“Then Comes Marriage will forever change the understanding of this landmark case-its genesis, its outside-the-box strategy, and its tactical brilliance.  This is the can’t-put-down, emotional, funny, essential explanatory test that makes sense of Windsor, not just as law but as life,” said MSNBC broadcaster Rachel Maddow.
Former United States President Bill Clinton explained that “United States v. Windsor was a landmark ruling and the case’s architect, Roberta Kaplan, emerged as a true American hero. Then Comes Marriage is a riveting account of a watershed moment in our history, and the strategy, ingenuity, and humanity that made it happen.”
In the Windsor case, the nation’s highest court ruled that a key provision of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) violated the U.S. Constitution by barring legally married same-sex couples from enjoying the wide-ranging benefits of marriage conferred under federal law. The consequences of the Windsor decision have been both rapid and profound. Dozens of courts throughout the U.S. have explicitly relied on Windsor to extend equal rights to gay people under the law.
In addition to Then Comes Marriage, Kaplan has also published numerous articles on a variety of legal topics, including “Investigating the Case” in Commercial Litigation in New York State Courts, and “Interplay Between Commercial Litigation and Criminal Proceedings” in Commercial Litigation in the Federal Circuit Courts. She recently published the articles “Regulation and the Sharing Economy” in the New York Law Journal and “Airbnb: A Case Study in Occupancy” in the University of Chicago Law Review.
Kaplan’s achievements have been honored by many, including the American Constitution Society, LOGO/MTV, the New York Women’s Foundation, the Family Equality Council, the Eleanor Roosevelt Legacy Committee, Stanford Law School, Columbia Law School, and the New York County Lawyers’ Association. She has received honorary doctorates from the Johns Hopkins University and the Jewish Theological Seminary.
Kaplan currently serves as the co-chair of the Board of Directors of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis and is on the Board of Eye to Eye, whose mission is to develop a coalition of mentoring programs for students with learning differences. Kaplan serves as a subcommittee chair on Chief Judge Lippman’s Commercial Division Advisory Council. She also is an adjunct professor of law at Columbia Law School, where she teaches a course on Advanced Civil Procedure.