Barbara Paul Robinson is a New York City lawyer with the firm Debevoise & Plimpton who specializes in Trusts and Estates law, and a former president of the New York City Bar Association.
Robinson received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Bryn Mawr College, and her Juris Doctor from Yale Law School, where she was an editor of the Yale Law Journal and a member of the Order of the Coif.
Robinson joined the firm of Debevoise & Plimpton in 1966, and became the firm’s first female partner in 1976 and later head of the firm’s Trusts and Estates division. In 1967, she established Debevoise’s flextime program for child-rearing attorneys, the first of its kind in New York. Among her clients, she has advised a number of wealthy individuals and organizations on trust law, including Yale University, Princeton University, and the Ford Foundation.
In addition to her private practice work, from 1994 to 1996 Robinson served as the first female president of the New York City Bar Association, where she contributed to the publication of a study entitled “Glass Ceilings and Open Doors” on the difficulty large law firms encounter in retaining female lawyers.
Robinson has served on the board of a number of institutions, including the Trust Advisory Board of Fiduciary Trust International, the Foundation for Childhood Development, and the Council on Foreign Relations.
She also serves on Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Commission on Women’s Issues.