Ep 253: Robbie Kaplan - In 20

Edited highlights of our full length conversation.

Which two things are true at once?

Robbie Kaplan is a lawyer and the founding partner at Kaplan Hecker & Fink LLP.

Robbie is best known for successfully challenging a key provision of the Defense of Marriage Act. Today, gay marriage is legal in America because Robbie Kaplan stood in front of the Supreme Court and argued for it.

Recently, she was E. Jean Carroll’s lawyer in both of her successful lawsuits against Donald Trump.

And among Robbie's many awards is one from The Financial Times, which named her the “Most Innovative Lawyer of the Year”.

People that know her, say about Robbie Kaplan, “she just sees things from a thousand different angles all at once, it’s hard to keep up with her thought processes. She’s not afraid, if she sees a problem, to go figure out some law that’s going to allow her to fix it.” 

Others say she is “a lawyer that you don’t want to see opposing you.” 

They say, “she’s brilliant, she’s unrelenting, she can’t be intimidated and she’s not going to back down. She eats bullies for lunch.”

And the Washington Post has described Robbie as “a brash and original strategist, a crusader for underdogs who has won almost every legal accolade imaginable.”

Which may make this admission surprising.

Not everyone doubts themselves. 

But many people do. 

If you are one of those people, if sometimes feeling that you are an imposter is holding you back, is preventing you from unlocking the potential of the people around you, as in yourself, then let me offer you this.

Two things can be true at once.

You can feel like an imposter and achieve extraordinary things at the same time.

You do have to be clear about the extraordinary things, and why they matter to you.

But then that’s what leadership is all about.