Robert L Lieff

Robert L. Lieff founded the San Francisco-based law firm Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP. 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. Under his leadership, the firm became, as described by The American Lawyer, “one of the nation’s premier 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 the 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, silicone breast implants, Fen Phen, Vioxx, Celebrex/Bextra, and Guidant medical devices cases.

At the conclusion of 2022, Robert left Lieff Cabraser and his position Of Counsel and is practicing as Lieff Global with offices in Rutherford, CA (Napa Valley) and Montecito, CA (Santa Barbara).

PO Drawer A, Rutherford, CA, 94573

Phone: 415 250 4800

Email: rlieff@lieff.com

Robert can be considered the true father of the Global Justice Network, as our association grew out of his beliefs and ideas and was initially an offshoot of his Global Justice Forum, an organization we remain closely linked to.