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As a high school student in New Castle, Del., Jeffrey D. Robinson ’80, nowsenior partner in the Washington law firm of Baach, Robinson & Lewis PLLC, attended an Intro to Engineering session at Lehigh University. Truth be told, though, he was more interested in political science than engineering.
“We also heard about Lafayette and wanted to see it,” he recalls. Good thing, for in Kirby Hall of Civil Rights he found a vision that would profoundly influence his life, an embodiment of ideals stirring within him.
The building exuded a solemn, almost spiritual reverence for the law and the idea that it applied to everyone, regardless of creed or color. That Lafayette would dedicate such an imposing building to civil rights so impressed Robinson that he enrolled as a government and law major and went on to graduate summa cum laude and receive the Pepper Prize.
“Lafayette was one of the most important experiences of my life,” he says. “It did everything for me that I could hope a college could do.” The encouragement of professors broadened his horizons, and the academic challenges cultivated a notion that he could achieve whatever he put his mind to.
Now he provides encouragement to Lafayette students through the Jeffrey Robinson ’80 Leadership Award, which is presented each year to accomplished students who are characterized by noteworthy leadership in college activities and student life.
His own record of leadership in service to others includes co-chairing the Washington Lawyers Committee on Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, which handles civil rights cases in employment, housing, public accommodations, and other aspects of urban life, representing people with claims of discrimination based on race, gender, national origin, disability, age, religion, and sexual orientation and assisting immigrants.
Robinson is a civil, commercial, and white-collar criminal litigator and an active participant in government affairs. His civil litigation practice currently emphasizes complex commercial and fraud cases, the representation of attorneys and other professionals, and civil rights. His practice also includes advocacy on behalf of organizations and individuals involved in criminal, regulatory, and Congressional investigations.
Robinson is active in government affairs matters at the federal and state levels, focusing on tort reform issues and other issues pending before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee.
Robinson has particular experience with investigative and other matters involving the District of Columbia government. In addition to serving as minority chief counsel to the Senate Constitution Subcommittee and deputy assistant U.S. attorney general, he was the district’s principal deputy corporation counsel – Washington’s No. 2 lawyer.
The Office of the Corporation Counsel, now called the Office of the Attorney General, represents the district in all its legal matters. Another Lafayette graduate, Robert J. Spagnoletti ’84, became corporation counsel, the district’s top legal representative, in 2003 and changed the office’s name to the Office of the Attorney General the following year. Spagnoletti served as Washington’s attorney general until October 2006, when he stepped down to join a private law firm.
Robinson has been an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center, co-chair of the Criminal Justice Committee of the American Bar Association’s Individual Rights and Responsibilities Section, and a trustee of the District of Columbia Public Defender Service. He is a fellow of the American Bar Foundation and a member of the District of Columbia Bar.
After graduating from Yale Law School, Robinson earned a position at the Washington law firm of Wilmer, Cutler, and Pickering. As staff attorney to Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, then ranking minority member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he worked on the nominations of William H. Rehnquist and Antonin Scalia to the Supreme Court.
He advised Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, minority member of the Senate Constitution Committee, on the nominations of Robert Bork and Anthony Kennedy to the high court.
In the first two years of the Clinton administration, he served as deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legislative Affairs, with substantial responsibility for the 1994 Crime Bill.
In 1996, Robinson was a founding partner in Baach, Robinson & Lewis. The 35-lawyer firm represents individuals and businesses involved in criminal and regulatory investigations and handles complex insurance coverage cases. It also represents individuals victimized by predatory or discriminatory lending practices.
Professionally, his “ultimate frustration” came as a trial counsel for Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore in his challenge to the Florida vote count in 2000.
“It’s the only case I ever lost that I’m reminded of every time I turn on the television,” Robinson says. “The ‘other guy’ is the President of the United States.”
One day, riding in a van from the Supreme Court, Robinson asked another Gore attorney where he went to college. “Lafayette,” replied Mitchell W. Berger ’77.
“Imagine!” Robinson says. “At such an important moment in the nation’s history, you find two guys from Lafayette together.”