In her 30-plus-year career as one of the nation’s foremost litigators, Robin Cohen has consistently taken on—and beaten—the world’s largest insurance companies. Recognized as one of the most effective and innovative insurance lawyers in the world, Robin has recovered over $10 billion for policyholder plaintiffs like Pfizer, Walmart, and CBS. These and other blue-chip corporations repeatedly choose her to secure coverage for catastrophic losses.
Robin’s career highlights have involved the biggest threats to business of the day. Early on, she earned a $1.85 billion trial award (upheld on appeal) to cover the asbestos liabilities of a manufacturer. After Superstorm Sandy, Robin secured a first-of-its-kind decision from the New Jersey Supreme Court, allowing the NJ Transit System to access $400 million in coverage.
Among other groundbreaking results, Robin recently secured the extremely rare reversal of a jury verdict, while representing Conduent State Healthcare in its pursuit of insurance coverage relating to a $236 million Medicaid settlement. Robin’s work has also established precedent in vital areas of D&O insurance, including one of the first decisions addressing coverage for a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), in which she secured a win for Clover Health Investments clarifying that insurers must pay defense costs for officers and directors of the SPAC both before and after its de-SPAC merger. Robin also won a significant ruling for Viacom Inc. (now Paramount Global), establishing that its insurers could not avoid covering a $122.5 million settlement of litigation stemming from the Viacom-CBS merger by relying on a “bump-up” exclusion.
In a high-profile case touching on national issues, Robin is championing Walmart’s claim for billions of dollars in coverage for opioid-related liability. She recently defeated efforts by dozens of Walmart’s insurers to dismiss the action and earned a ruling establishing Walmart’s right to coverage for defense costs in thousands of opioid-related lawsuits. The court’s precedent-setting decision, issued in January 2024, addressed multiple issues of first impression under Arkansas law.
Robin’s dynamic trial presence, agile and quick-to-pivot thinking, excellent listening skills, and refreshingly direct and often humorous delivery gain the respect and admiration of judges, juries, and adverse lawyers alike. Her courtroom skills and trial success have earned her recognition as one of The National Law Journal’s 50 Most Influential Women Lawyers in America, a Law360 MVP for Insurance seven times, a Legal 500 Advice to Policyholders Hall of Fame honoree, a Benchmark Litigation Top 100 Trial Lawyer in America, Top 250 Women in Litigation, and Insurance Lawyer of the Year, and a Crain’s New York Business Notable Woman in Law, among many other honors.
Outside the courtroom, Robin focuses on tackling bet-the-company insurance issues that materially impact the bottom line for companies and developing a strategy that solves the clients’ problems and utilizes the team’s trial prowess to maximize settlements against the insurance industry. Organizations rely on her to help them address a range of concerns, including coverage questions about losses stemming from the Covid-19 pandemic, fallout from governmental investigations, securities litigation against directors and officers, impacts from the ever-changing regulatory landscape, and exposure problems brought by computer system breaches.
Year Founded Firm: 2021
Education: University of Pennsylvania Law School (J.D.); University of Pennsylvania (B.A.)
Updated Aug 2024
