Robert Kaufman has 25 years intensive civil litigation experience in a defense firm. He is a member of the American Board of Trial Advocates. From 1979-1982, he served as second senior member of a 12-attorney mass litigation team representing a self-insured target defendant in over 3,000 suits. He won the first defense jury verdict in an asbestos case in the state of California.

From 1982-1985, and from 1989 to the present, he gained further experience in defending litigation for self-insured major industrial and pharmaceutical clients, including business and general liability litigation.

The majority of this work has been in the areas of product liability defense (including bodily injury allegedly arising from DES, Rheyes syndrome, Bendectine and asbestos), and insurance law litigation. It has also included defense of a wide variety of other types of claims, including serious auto accidents, premises liability claims and construction defect. From 1985-1989, he specialized in appellate law. He has been the principal counsel in over 60 appellate cases across the country, including briefing and arguing such landmark cases as Brown v. Superior Court and Jolly v. Abbott Laboratories, et al. (both decided by the California Supreme Court in 1988), as well as Hegyes v. George (California Court of Appeal, 1991).

Mr. Kaufman was a senior partner at Haight, Brown & Bonesteel for 22 years. From 1975 to 1979, he was with the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office as a Deputy District Attorney.

Mr. Kaufman received his B.A. in International Relations from the University of Southern California also completing course work for a Pre-Med major. He received his J.D. from U.C.L.A. School of Law. Mr. Kaufman is an instructor of the Jack Daniels Trial Academy of the American Board of Trial Advocates.