Not knowing what you don’t know pays off

Starting their own firm was pure folly, but Robbins Umeda spotted a niche and captured it.

On May 24, 2010, The National Law Journal published a “Litigation Boutiques” special report featuring an article about Robbins Umeda LLP. In it, Karen Sloan describes the firm’s founding in 2002, quoting founding partner Brian Robbins as saying, “I think I suffered from the benefit of being 28 years old at the time and not knowing I was biting off more than I could chew.” The risk paid off and Robbins Umeda LLP is now a leader in the shareholder rights arena, having secured more than $1 billion in recoveries for clients including KB Home and Cardinal Health Inc. and boasting a roster filled with former assistant U.S. attorneys and attorneys from major defense firms.

The article describes how Brian Robbins and his partner Marc Umeda decided to focus on shareholder rights litigation, with both attorneys viewing it as an underserved niche that wasn’t “well-protected or litigated.” Success came early, with a major win in 2005 of $61.5 million on behalf shareholders of Titan Inc. and $51.5 million in 2006 for Tenet Healthcare Corp.

Stock-options backdating cases kept the firm busy in the mid-2000’s, though now attorneys at the firm are occupied by representing shareholders in mergers-and-acquisitions transactions and other claims of corporate mismanagement.

“Our goal is to champion shareholder rights on behalf of people who couldn’t hire lawyers if they had to pay for them on an hourly basis, and do that in a way that brings credibility to our firm and raises our reputation for shareholder-rights litigation,” said Brian Robbins.

* The firm name changed from Robbins Umeda LLP to Robbins LLP on January 1, 2013.