ABOUT

EDUCATION
St. John's University School of Law – 1978

BAR ADMISSIONS
New York, 1979

AREAS OF PRACTICE
• Medical Negligence
• Product Liability
• General Liability
• Transactional & Real Estate

RATED BY SUPER LAWYERS
Only 5 percent of lawyers in each state are named Super Lawyers.

Roberta Ashkin has been in the forefront of personal injury/tort litigation since the early 1980's with the onset of litigation on behalf of DES victims exposed in-utero to this dangerous pharmaceutical agent. In her 40 year career she has successfully litigated untold numbers of cases in the medical malpractice, consumer product and pharmaceutical liability fields representing victims of medical errors in hospitals, physician offices and nursing home settings, and countless other individuals exposed to dangerous pharmaceutical drugs and devices including Vioxx and Bextra, Serzone, Accutane, Latex Gloves, oral contraceptives, hormone replacement medications (HRT) Viagara, the Dalkon Shield and Copper Seven devices, Guidant Stents, and others. She has also devoted her time to representing thousands of workers and their families exposed to Asbestos, and numerous other toxic and chemical agents in the home and workplace including benzene, radiation, organic solvents, carbon dioxide and cancer-producing agents contaminating these environments.

She also has extensive experience litigating commercial and real estate matters in the New York Supreme Court. Over the past ten years the firm has expanded its practice to include real estate and transactional matters with a concentration on commercial and residential leases and sales. She has substantial knowledge and training in distressed property foreclosures and sales and has by judicial appointment served as Receiver in pending foreclosure proceedings in the fiscal oversight and management of commercial enterprises, multiple dwellings, and distressed hotels. 

Roberta received her undergraduate degree, Magna Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa from Hofstra University. A 1978 graduate of St. John's University School of Law, she initially began her legal career as an editor of Moore's Federal Practice before joining the defense medical malpractice litigation bar. Soon recognizing her true calling, she became associated with some of the stalwarts in the plaintiffs' bar, among them the legendary Harry Lipsig, and later, Alfred Julien, as managing attorney of his high profile national plaintiff's tort practice; as a partner of Trolman Glaser Corley and Lichtman, where she headed up its medical malpractice department; and as the resident partner in the New York office of the nationally renowned Dallas-based firm of Baron & Budd, before launching her own firm.

Her prominence in the New York Bar has resulted in her association in an "Of Counsel" position to a number of well-known and prestigious national firms, among them the Levin Papantonio firm based in Pensacola, Florida, where she interfaced on a number of existing and developing mass tort projects, among them, the pharmaceuticals PPA and Serzone; the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania firm of Kline and Specter, for which she served as local counsel in its Serzone litigation; the Montgomery, Alabama law firm of Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methin, Portis & Miles, for which she served as local counsel in its Serzone, Hormone Replacement Therapy, Bextra and Celebrex litigations; the Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld and Toll firm of Washington, D.C., with which she served as co-counsel in its Hormone Replacement Litigation in New York,. and the esteemed Charleston, West Virginia firm, The Calwell Practice, for which she served in the position as ‘Of Counsel” and managed the firm’s New York-based litigation.

Having served as past Secretary and Treasurer of the New York State Trial Lawyers Association, Ms. Ashkin is also the founder and past Chair of the organization's Women's Caucus. She served on the Board of Directors of Public Justice, a national public interest law firm engaged in the litigation of environmental and public interest issues. She also served in connection with the American Association of Justice (formally the Association of Trial Lawyers of America ) by ATLA presidential appointment on the Public Affairs Liaison Committee, the AAJ PAC Task Force and State Affairs Committees. Ms. Ashkin served by judicial appointment as Plaintiff Liaison Counsel in New York Hormone Replacement Therapy Litigation, New York Serzone Litigation, and as a member of the Plaintiff’s Counsel Steering Committee in the State Supreme Court’s Bextra and Celebrex Litigation.

She served on the Board of Directors of Daytop Village, a not-for-profit organization which works to rehabilitate youth and young adults with drug and alcohol abuse and dependency issues. Ms. Ashkin also served is on the Board of Cancer Schmancer, actress Fran Drescher’s national organization devoted to ensuring that all women's cancers be diagnosed in Stage 1 when they are most curable. She accompanied Ms. Drescher on her maiden European tour as the United States Ambassador of Women’s Health by appointment of First Lady Barbara Bush to Kosovo, Albania, Romania and Poland. Ms. Ashkin also served as a delegate to Russia by People-to- People to meet with Russian attorneys to discuss advancement in the Russian legal system.

She has served on a number of committees interfacing with the legal profession and the judiciary in the areas of medical malpractice and products liability, including the New York County Lawyers Association, for which she served as the Medical Malpractice Committee Chair, and as a member of the Supreme Court, New York County Medical Malpractice Committee before Justice Jacqueline Silberman, then Chief Administrative Judge of the Supreme Court, New York County. She also served as Chair of the Civil Justice Advisory Board of the Drum Major Institute For Public Policy, a non-profit progressive think tank and community action group promoting social and economic justice.

Ms. Ashkin has been intimately involved on the local and national political fronts. In 2003 she was by named as Senior Advisor of Women’s Issues by Representative Richard Gephardt in his “Gephardt for President” campaign. Among her many local political endeavors she currently serves as a board member on the East River Democratic Club.

She has been an active lecturer to the legal profession including the New York State Trial Lawyers Institute, The American Association of Justice, and Mass Torts Made Perfect on a variety of legal topics and has been an invited guest speaker on a number of local and nationally televised legal/public interest programs.

She is admitted to the bars of the State of New York, the United States District Courts for the Eastern, Southern, Western and Northern Districts of the State of New York, and the United States Supreme Court.


OF COUNSEL

Ms. Ashkin is presently “Of Counsel” to the renowned firm of Trolman Glaser Corley and Lichtman, P.C., a leading bilingual personal injury firm in New York, recognized for its legal services in Hispanic communities across the city and state of New York.

Ms. Ashkin has handled many complicated cases for the firm including medical practice injury and death cases; birth injury cases; and trucking accidents.

RECENT CO-COUNSELED CASES

Settlement of $4,500,000.00 in a significant medical malpractice claim against a leading Hospital in the City of New York involving a cancer misdiagnosis and aggressive unnecessary surgery with severe resulting physical incapacities.

Settlement of $2,250.000.00 on behalf of a family whose husband/father collapsed and died in front of his then six year old son, after a prominent New York Hospital improperly and prematurely discharged him without a proper diagnosis and treatment of a serious heart condition.