Roberta A. Kaplan

In 2018, Kaplan teamed up with Tina Tchen to found the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund. The fund has raised more than $24 million to provide legal defense for sexual violence victims, especially those who experienced misconduct in the workplace and led 780 attorneys and 50 cases under way. The pair later teamed up in 2019 to form HABIT, an anti-sexual harassment advisory.

In July 2017, Kaplan founded Kaplan Hecker & Fink LLP, a law firm dedicated to commercial litigation and public interest matters.

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).

On June 26, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a 5-4 decision declaring Section 3 of DOMA to be unconstitutional. Subsequent to Windsor, the Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) struck down all remaining state and federal laws against same-sex marriage across the United States. Kaplan wrote about United States v. Windsor in the book Then Comes Marriage.

In 2009, Kaplan agreed to represent Edith Windsor pro bono. Windsor's wife, Thea Spyer, had died two years after they wed in Canada, leaving Windsor her sole heir. Because their marriage was not recognized under existing U. S. federal law, Windsor received an estate tax bill of $363,053. Windsor went to gay rights advocates seeking redress, but could find no one to take her case. She was referred to Kaplan, who later recalled, "When I heard her story, it took me about five seconds, maybe less, to agree to represent her." Kaplan had been co-counsel on the unsuccessful bid for marriage equality in New York state in 2006.

In September 2005, Kaplan married her partner, lawyer and Democratic Party activist Rachel Lavine, in Toronto, Canada. The couple live in New York City with their son.

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.

Kaplan joined Paul Weiss in 1996 and was made partner in 1999.

A native of Cleveland, Ohio, Kaplan graduated from Hawken School in Gates Mills, Ohio, in 1984. LGBT scholar and activist Aaron Belkin was Kaplan's high school friend and prom date. She earned an A.B. from Harvard University in 1988 and received her J.D. from Columbia Law School in 1991.

Roberta A. "Robbie" Kaplan (born 1966) is an American lawyer focusing on commercial litigation and public interest matters. She co-founded the Time's Up Legal Defense Fund and is an adjunct professor of law at Columbia University Law School. She was a partner at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison before starting her own firm in 2017.