Robin Hulshizer is a trial lawyer with more than 25 years of experience litigating complex commercial and environmental matters. She is a member of Latham’s Complex Commercial Litigation and Environmental, Social & Governance Practices, focusing on all areas of environmental litigation, including contaminated properties, toxic torts, greenwashing claims, and environmental justice-based claims.

Her experience is multi-disciplinary, including toxic torts, product liability, consumer fraud, business contract, insurance coverage, class actions, and securities litigation. She has represented clients across various sectors such as manufacturing, oil and gas, retail and consumer products, energy, and industrial hygiene.

In the environmental arena, Robin’s experience has spanned every major environmental statute (such as CERCLA, RCRA, CWA) and includes not only litigation but contaminated site remediation, permitting and compliance strategies, regulatory work, investigation, and enforcement actions. She also provides ESG, environmental, and litigation counseling in connection with large-scale mergers, acquisitions, and financing transactions. In addition to her representation of clients in litigation arising out of mobile and stationary emissions, toxic tort, and the Superfund/cost recovery arena, her experience includes explosion cases, citizen suits, private cost recovery actions, and claims brought by or against federal and state governments. Robin has also worked on variances and penalty actions for a variety of clients. 

In the business disputes forum, Robin has extensive trial and court experience, representing various companies in high-stakes commercial litigation, as well as before governmental agencies including the SEC, EPA, and state equivalent agencies. She also has served as counsel in numerous complex, multiparty cases as well as class actions and multi-district litigations, in various federal and state courts around the country, and Canada.

She formerly served as Deputy Office Managing Partner of the Chicago office as well as Local Chair of the Environmental, Land & Resources Department, and as a Vice Chair of the firm’s former Diversity Leadership Committee.

Robin’s experience includes:

  • Defense of AbbVie in 200+ personal injury lawsuits filed in Cook County, Illinois alleging various cancers and wrongful death purportedly resulting from exposure to Ethylene Oxide emissions
  • Defense of ECP Gopher Holdings in multiple lawsuits brought by 1,000+ plaintiffs alleging that exposure to lead, arsenic, and other harmful substances from Florida and Minnesota recycling facilities lead to an array of significant health problems
  • Represented Illinois packaging company before state and local entities in connection with the accidental deployment of aqueous film-forming foam containing PFAS
  • 20-plus-year representation of Clean Harbors and Baxter International in relation to various governmental demands and litigation related to alleged soil and groundwater contamination at the Omega Superfund Site in Whitter, California
  • Defended various multi-plaintiff actions related to alleged exposure to hazardous substances whether by air, soil, or groundwater, such as claims brought by 1,600 commercial fisherman against Occidental Chemical, as well as chemical plant explosions, including a 20,000-plaintiff personal injury class action suit in Louisiana
  • Defense of Navistar International Corp. and its former CEO in connection with SEC investigations, securities lawsuits, and derivative actions arising out of alleged misstatements regarding its mobile source emission strategy, including technical analysis of engine certification applications, testing requirements, and diesel engine programs
  • Representation of Allison Transmission advising on environmental regulations and project development in connection with a new environmental testing facility
  • Defending client in multiple state actions, a multi-district litigation, and Canadian class actions, alleging emissions-related defects in big bore diesel engines
  • Representation of Chevron in a writ of mandate proceeding against a California Air Pollution Control District
  • Defense of Beyond Meat in a multi-district litigation proceeding alleging greenwashing/false advertising
  • Defense of Oracle in litigation alleging a defect in its Electronic Health Record software caused personal injury
  • Two-week contractual indemnification arbitration hearing regarding HSWA environmental cleanup exposure at the fourth-largest refinery in the US
  • Four-week trial in Louisville, Kentucky, establishing takings value of property allegedly contaminated by manufacturing facility
  • Five-week trial concerning Robinson Pattman Act claims in Northern District of Illinois
  • Two-week trademark infringement and unfair competition trial also in Northern District of Illinois
  • One-week insurance defense trial in the Central District of California
  • Defense of high-profile litigation pending in seven forums relating to a company’s near US$1 billion restatement, resulting SEC accounting and financial reporting investigation, SOX complaint, and other related litigation
  • Defense of International Truck and Engine and other defendants in a US$260 million breach of contract action filed in state court, as well as related actions filed in various federal courts concerning patents at issue
  • Defense of a toxic tort putative class action lawsuit brought on behalf of 54 representative plaintiffs alleging airborne and ground dioxin contamination from industrial plant and loading operations in Kentucky
  • Representation of an international food manufacturer in purported class actions filed in multiple US jurisdictions alleging false marketing claims in violation of various consumer protection act statutes
  • Defended a major international manufacturing corporation in multiple class action lawsuits following a cyber-attack on the company’s data infrastructure
  • Regulatory advice and strategic risk avoidance counseling for a material processing and handling public energy company serving steel and power customers

Leadership

Robin frequently writes and speaks on topics in the environmental space.

For multiple years, Robin served as the Vice Chair of the firm’s former Diversity Leadership Committee. In 2020, she was recognized by Profiles in Diversity Journal as one of their “Women Worth Watching in Leadership.” 

Robin is also passionate about various child-related initiatives, serving for over 10 years on the board of The REACH Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to developing methods for addressing the mental health needs of children. For over 14 years, she has Chaired the Chicago Do The Write Thing Program, an initiative of the National Campaign to Stop Violence aimed at middle school students. 
 

Bar Qualification

  • Illinois
  • California

Education

  • JD, University of Iowa College of Law, 1991
  • BS, Northwestern University, 1986

Languages Spoken

  • English