The American Lawyer profiles McCarter Partner Judge Eduardo Robreno, an American Lawyer Lifetime Achievement honoree. The piece highlights Judge Robreno’s role in the asbestos multidistrict litigation MDL-875, which consisted of over 180,00 individual cases when he was assigned the matter, and the creative and efficient processes he put in place during his assigned that resulted in a significant decrees in the number of cases on the docket.
“His handling of the asbestos MDL was masterful,” said his former Eastern District of Pennsylvania colleague, U.S. District Judge Wendy Beetlestone. “There was a sense that this was going to be very large, but no one ever thought it was going to be as large as it became.”
Judge Robreno recalled, “Ultimately, [it] was over 180,000 cases, so normal and ordinary procedures were not going to be able to handle that. We decentralized all the cases and said, ‘One claim, one defendant’ and put all the cases on scheduled orders.”
The piece also notes Judge Robreno’s unique path to the bench. He immigrated to the United States at the age of 15 from Cuba as part of Operation Peter Pan, and after starting out in Miami, resettled in Massachusetts, where he attended Westfield State University the University of Massachusetts before going to law school at Rutgers University at age 30.
In his legal career, Judge Robreno spent time at the Department of Justice and in private practice before his appointment and confirmation to the bench in 1992 when he became the first Cuban American to sit on the federal judiciary.
“Sitting in the district court is the apex of my career,” he said.. “It was a job that calls upon all of your legal skills as well as personal skills. A judge is not just someone who says ‘overruled’ or ‘affirmed,’ but is a public person that enforces the rule of law in every respect. And the ability to be involved in the process of enforcing and shaping the rule of law is my greatest source of satisfaction.”
At McCarter, Judge Robreno focuses his practice on alternative dispute resolution through arbitration, mediation, special masterships, corporate investigations, and other court appointed neutral services.