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Who

Birnbaum is a partner at Skadden Arps, where she heads up the complex mass tort and insurance group and defends companies against claims of product liability. Translation: She helps the big guys beat you.

Backstory

Birnbaum grew up in the Bronx and attended Hunter College before heading off to NYU Law School. She spent the early part of her career teaching, first fourth-graders at a New York City public school and then students at Fordham Law for six years during the '70s. Until the mid-'80s, she taught at NYU's law school (where she also served as associate dean) and worked as a part-time attorney at Skadden, before fleeing academia altogether and joining the firm full-time. Since then she's become a go-to lawyer for corporations seeking to reduce punitive damages they've been ordered (or might be ordered) to pay, and is arguably the top female lawyer at Skadden—and one of the most expensive attorneys in town.

Of note

The "Queen of Toxic Torts" has repped high-profile clients like Anheuser-Busch, Aventis, and Pfizer in numerous cases. She represented Dow Corning after more than 10,000 claims were filed in connection with the company's silicone breast implants. No corporation, however, has provided her more billable hours than State Farm. In 2002 she represented the company in Campbell v. State Farm and persuaded the Supreme Court to void $145 million in punitive damages against the auto insurance company. In 2005, she defended State Farm again, successfully convincing the Illinois Supreme Court to reverse a nationwide class action judgment of more than $1 billion. More recently, she's helped the insurance monolith fend off litigation from thousands of Gulf Coast homeowners shafted by State Farm in the wake of Hurricane Katrina; that particular legal battle pitted the "Queen of Toxic Torts" against the Katrina Group's since-discredited Dickie Scruggs, himself known as the "King of Torts."

For the record

Although most families of victims of Sept. 11th participated in the $7 billion victim-compensation fund set up by Congress, some declined to participate and took their cases to court instead. Judge Alvin Hellerstein assigned Birnbaum to mediate Sept. 11th settlement talks, which continue to this day.

On the job

It was Joe Flom who convinced Birnbaum to come to Skadden. She now works with a handful of star lawyers at the firm, including Greg Milmoe, Preeta Bansal, Nancy Lieberman, Robert Bennett, Ken Plevan, and eminence grise Helene Kaplan.

Personal

The Bronx-accented Birnbaum and her husband, Saul, live at Sutton Place and have a summer house in East Hampton.