Intro


Photo: Robert L LieffThis site offers a glimpse into the incomparable career and amazing life of Robert L. Lieff, one of the most innovative and influential plaintiffs’ lawyers of the last 50 years.

Robert L. Lieff was the founder of Lieff Cabraser. Under his direction, Lieff Cabraser became one of the largest and most successful plaintiff law firms in the world. Mr. Lieff founded the firm in 1972, after seven years as a partner of Melvin Belli in San Francisco in Belli, Ashe, Ellison, Choulos, & Lieff.

Robert Lieff and his wife Susan reside in Rutherford, California, and Montecito, California.

Robert Lieff’s Condensed Resume

ROBERT L. LIEFF, 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

Founder (1972) and Chair of Tort Practice Group, Lieff Cabraser (1985-2007)

Education
Columbia University (M.B.A., 1962; J.D., 1961); Cornell University (B.A., 1958); Columbia Law School Dean’s Council (2006-present); Columbia Law School Board of Visitors (1992-2006); Columbia Law School Center on Corporate Governance Advisory Board (2004)

Principal Cases

  • Multi-State Tobacco Litigation (1998), wherein Lieff Cabraser represented the Attorneys General of Massachusetts, Louisiana and Illinois, several additional states, and 21 cities and counties in California, in litigation against Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds and other cigarette manufacturers, part of the landmark $206 billion settlement announced in November 1998 between the tobacco industry and the states’ attorneys general; in California alone, Lieff Cabraser’s clients were awarded an estimated $12.5 billion to be paid through 2025
  • In re Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Litigation, No. 3:89-cv-0095 HRH (D. Al.), .), where Lieff Cabraser served as Plaintiffs’ Co-Class Counsel and on the Class Trial Team that tried the case before a jury in federal court in 1994 that led to a jury award of $5 billion in punitive damages reduced in subsequent appellate review; in 2006, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals set the punitive damages award at $2.5 billion, and subsequently the U.S. Supreme Court further reduced the punitive damages award to $507.5 million, an amount equal to the compensatory damages, such that with interest, the total award to the plaintiff class was $977 million
  • Successful recoveries for victim families in numerous Aviation Disaster and Crash Cases, including the Gol Airlines Flight 1907 Amazon crash (2006); the Lexington, Kentucky Comair CRJ-100 Commuter Flight Crash (2006); the Helios Airways Flight 522 Athens, Greece crash (2005); the Manhattan Tourist Helicopter Crash (2005); the U.S. Army Blackhawk Helicopter Tower Collision (2004); the Air Algerie Boeing 737 Crash (2003); the Aeroflot-Russian International Airlines Airbus Disaster (1994); the United Airlines Boeing 747 Hawaii Disaster (1989); Lockheed F-104 Fighter Crashes (1974)
  • Cruz v. U.S., Estados Unidos Mexicanos, Wells Fargo Bank, et al., No. 01-0892- CRB (N.D. Cal.), where Robert Lieff’s passion for viticulture and personal experiences working alongside day laborers in numerous vineyards led the firm into correcting a 60-year injustice on behalf of Mexican workers and laborers, known as Braceros (“strong arms”), who came from Mexico to the United States pursuant to bilateral agreements from 1942 through 1946 to aid American farms and industries hurt by employee shortages during World War II, but from whom 10% of wages were withheld in forced savings accounts which were never paid out to the Braceros; despite significant obstacles including the aging and passing away of many Braceros, statutes of limitation hurdles, and strong defenses to claims under contract and international law, plaintiffs prevailed in an historic and meaningful restitution settlement in 2009
  • Holocaust Cases, wherein Lieff Cabraser was one of the leading firms that prosecuted claims by Holocaust survivors and the heirs of Holocaust survivors and victims against banks and private manufacturers and other corporations who enslaved and/or looted the assets of Jews and other minority groups persecuted by the Nazi Regime during the Second World War era; the firm served as Settlement Class Counsel in the case against the Swiss banks for which the Court approved a U.S. $1.25 billion settlement in July 2000 (notably, Lieff Cabraser donated its attorneys’ fees in the Swiss Banks case to endow a Human Rights clinical chair at Columbia University Law School); the firm was also active in slave labor and property litigation against German and Austrian defendants, and Nazi-era banking litigation against French banks, in connection with which Lieff Cabraser participated in multi-national negotiations that led to Executive Agreements establishing an additional approximately U.S. $5 billion in funds for survivors and victims of Nazi persecution
  • Monsanto Roundup Injury Litigation, representing victims alleging their cancer injuries were caused by use of Monsanto’s unsafe Roundup pesticide
  • FTX Crypto Currency Litigation, involving the loss through Crypto Currency deposits of approximately $10 billion from hundreds of thousands of individuals

Academic & Other Philanthropy
Through a gift of all the attorneys’ fees from the firm’s Holocaust litigation, Robert Lieff endowed the Lieff Cabraser Clinical Professorship of Human Rights Law at his alma mater, Columbia Law School. Robert subsequently endowed a second chair at Columbia Law School as The Robert L. Lieff Professorship of Law: Director of the Center for Chinese Legal Studies. Robert is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Bellosguardo Foundation in Santa Barbara, California.

Awards & Honors
AV Preeminent Peer Review Rated, Martindale-Hubbell; Selected for inclusion by peers in The Best Lawyers in America in fields of “Mass Tort Litigation/Class Actions – Plaintiffs,” Best Lawyers (2015-2021); “Elite Trial Lawyers Hall of Fame,” National Law Journal (2015); “Super Lawyer for Northern California,” Super Lawyers (2005-2009); “Lawdragon Finalist,” Lawdragon (2005)

Conferences & Seminars
Conceived, initiated, structured, developed, implemented, managed and presented the Global Justice Forum (2005-2014), a series of international gatherings across the world created to bring together plaintiff lawyers world-wide to discuss, review, and develop international and cross border litigation for plaintiffs; “Representing International Plaintiffs in American Courts,” London, 2005; “Litigation Plaintiffs’ Claims Internationally,” Paris, 2006; “Litigation Plaintiffs’ Claims Internationally,” Rome, 2007; “Current Developments in Cross Border Litigation,” New York (Columbia Law School), 2007; “Global Litigation in a Post-Economic Crisis World,” New York (Columbia Law School), 2009; “Meeting of Best Friends,” Vienna, 2009; “Selected Topics in Cross-Border Litigation—The GJN Organization and Structure,” New York (Columbia Law School), 2011; “International Litigation Issues,” Zurich, 2012; “The Global Justice Forum,” presented by Robert L. Lieff and the Richard Paul Richman Center for Business, Law, and Public Policy, New York (Columbia Law School), 2013; “The Global Justice Forum – Income Inequality,” presented by Robert L. Lieff and the Richard Paul Richman Center for Business, Law, and Public Policy, New York (Columbia Law School), 2014; conceived, initiated, structured, developed, implemented, managed and presented the Global Justice Network (2013-2015) to further connect and share knowledge and experience between plaintiff lawyers worldwide; “Global Justice Network Spring Conference,” Dublin, 2013; “Global Justice Network Spring Conference,” Amsterdam, 2015; “Global Justice Network Spring Conference,” San Francisco, 2015

Prior Employment
Migrant laborer cherry picker, Napa Valley (1960)

“I’ll never forget my friend who had lost an arm while working for the Southern Pacific Railroad. He told me about the settlement, $1,000 for the loss of his arm. He was a good sport, and he picked more cherries than any of us. His story would stick with me forever and certainly influenced me in terms of my efforts to recover for similar people injured on the job.”
—Robert Lieff

Associate attorney, Chadbourne, Parke, Whiteside & Wolff (1962-1964); Associate attorney, Belli, Ashe & Gerry (1965 – 1968); Partner, Belli, Ashe, Ellison, Choulos & Lieff (1968-1972); Founding partner, Lieff Alexander Wilcox (1972-1975); Founding partner, Law Offices of Robert L. Lieff (1975-1983); Founding partner, Lieff & Cabraser (1983-1985); Founding partner, Lieff Cabraser Heimann (1985-1995); Founding partner, Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP (1995-2007), Managing Partner (1995-2002); Founding partner, Lieff Global (2007- 2009); Of counsel, Lieff Cabraser (2007-2022)

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); Lawyers Club of San Francisco; San Francisco Trial Lawyers Association; California Trial Lawyers Association; Consumer Attorneys of California; Fight for Justice Campaign

Although Mr. Lieff is no longer affiliated with Lieff Cabraser as a practitioner, he continues to practice law under his own name and can be reached via telephone at (415) 250-4800; by email at rlieff@lieff.com; or by mail at P.O. Drawer A, Rutherford, CA 94573.