Robert L. Lieff
Of Counsel
San Francisco
A Legal Visionary and Global Champion of Justice
Robert founded our firm in 1972 after litigating for seven years as a name partner with the late Melvin Belli in San Francisco at the law firm of Belli, Ashe, Ellison, Choulos & Lieff.
For more than three decades, Robert was the principal architect of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP. Under his leadership, the firm became, as described by The American Lawyer, "one of the nation's premiere plaintiffs firms,” with over 60 lawyers and 200 employees in San Francisco, New York and Nashville.
Robert was a key player in multiple landmark civil cases including the Exxon Valdez oil disaster and Holocaust litigation. In 1996, in the national tobacco industry litigation, Robert spearheaded the first settlement with a tobacco company. The settlement signaled the end of forty years of success by tobacco companies in defeating health-related lawsuits. Two years later, an unprecedented $206 billion settlement was announced between the tobacco industry and the states’ attorneys general.
The cases Robert managed at Lieff Cabraser when he headed the firm’s personal injury practice and mass torts group included the Sulzer hip and knee implant, silicon breast implants, Fen Phen, Vioxx, Celebrex, Bextra and Guidant medical devices litigation.
In the early 2000s, Robert created an international network of lawyers that meets annually at the Global Justice Forum. The first forum occurred in London in 2005. Subsequent forums have taken place in Paris, Rome, Vienna, and New York. More than 300 lawyers from 30 countries on six continents have attended the Global Justice Forum.
Robert continues to organize and lead the Global Justice Forum. The next forum will occur on October 22, 2010, in New York at Columbia Law School, a co-sponsor of the event. This international forum is the 21st century version of the creative energy that brought together American tort practitioners in the 20th century under the leadership of the Belli firm.
Philanthropy and Civic Activities
Through a gift of all the attorneys' fees from the firm's Holocaust litigation, Robert endowed the Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein Clinical Professorship of Human Rights Law at his alma mater, Columbia Law School. Robert has undertaken to endow a second chair at Columbia Law School as The Robert L. Lieff Professorship chair in Cross-Border Litigation. Robert is also a member of the Dean's Council at Columbia Law School.
Robert is a Member of the Board of Trustees of The Land Trust of Napa County; and a Member of the Board of Trustees of Legal Aid of Napa Valley. He and his wife Gretchen reside in homes in San Francisco, Rutherford (Napa Valley) and Montecito, California. They operate Lieff Wines, LLC, producing wine in Rutherford and operating vineyards at Alamo Creek Ranch, their 2,500 acre property in San Luis Obispo, California.
Bar Information
Admitted to practice in California,
1966; U.S. District Court, Northern District of California and U.S. Court
of Appeals, Ninth Circuit, 1969; U.S. Supreme Court, 1969; U.S. Court
of Appeals, Seventh Circuit, 1972; U.S. Tax Court, 1974; U.S. District
Court, District of Hawaii, 1986.
Awards & Memberships
Mr. Lieff has been recognized by Law & Politics magazine as a “Northern California Super Lawyer” in 2005–2008. He is a member of the Bar Association of San Francisco, State Bar of California (Member: Committee on Rules of Court, 1971–74, Special Committee on Multiple Litigation and Class Actions, 1972–73), American Bar Association (Section on Corporation, Banking and Business Law), Lawyers Club of San Francisco, San Francisco Trial Lawyers Association, California Trial Lawyers Association, Consumer Attorneys of California, the American Association for Justice; the Board of Visitors, Columbia Law School, 1992–2006; Dean’s Council, Columbia Law School, 2006–Present.
Member
Bar Association of San Francisco;
State Bar of California (Member: Committee on Rules of Court, 1971-74;
Special Committee on Multiple Litigation and Class Actions, 1972-73);
American Bar Association (Section on Corporation, Banking and Business
Law); American Association of Justice; Lawyers Club of San Francisco;
San Francisco Trial Lawyers Association; Consumer Attorneys of California.
About Lieff Cabraser
Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP is a sixty-plus attorney law firm that has represented plaintiffs nationwide since 1972. We have offices in San Francisco, New York and Nashville. We represent plaintiffs in class and group actions and in individual lawsuits in cases involving substantial losses. For the last seven years, The National Law Journal has selected Lieff Cabraser as one of the top plaintiffs' law firms in the nation.
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