Todd E. Robins

Todd E. Robins

Founding Partner

trobins@rbwaterlaw.com
415.848.8850

Todd E. Robins is an experienced environmental litigator with extensive experience representing public water suppliers who struggle with the financial burden required to either treat or replace groundwater supplies contaminated by the misconduct of others.

Todd founded Robins Borghei LLP – along with founding partner, Jed Borghei – to advance their firm belief that any company or other entity that has contaminated a community’s drinking water supply should be held accountable for the cost of treating or replacing it.  Simply put, water suppliers should not have to choose between clean and affordable water; they have a right to both.

Todd is a nationally recognized expert on 1,2,3-trichloropropane (TCP), a potent carcinogen that was an impurity in soil fumigants, and has caused widespread groundwater contamination in agricultural areas. He serves as co-lead plaintiffs’ counsel representing dozens of water utility clients in the ongoing California statewide coordinated TCP products liability litigation against the manufacturers of TCP-containing fumigants. He has successfully represented nine individual water suppliers—one in Hawaii and eight in California—in obtaining significant financial settlements from companies responsible for TCP groundwater contamination, and represents dozens more in pending cases.  Todd’s work on TCP has been covered extensively in the media, including pieces in the Fresno Bee, Daily Journal, Water Deeply, Pacific Standard, and on KQED radio.  He has also authored an article regarding Robins Borghei LLP’s work on the TCP litigation in the California Water Journal.

Todd is also a pioneer in the area of cost-recovery for nitrate contamination. Robins Borghei LLP successfully resolved one of the first nitrate cases of its kind for a Central Valley water supplier, employing a two-track strategy of litigation and advocacy before the Regional Water Quality Control Board.

Todd has been invited by a number of water industry groups to speak about his experience with groundwater contamination and cost-recovery litigation. These organizations include the American Groundwater Trust, Association of California Water Agencies, the American Water Works Association and the National Rural Water Association. He has also been invited to give testimony on the subject of nitrate groundwater contamination before the California State Assembly’s Committee on Water, Parks, and Wildlife, and served as a guest lecturer on groundwater law at Stanford University Law School and UC Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law.  Todd has been recognized for multiple consecutive years as a Northern California “Super Lawyer.”

As expressed by one satisfied client, “Todd brings a strategic long-view to everything he works on . . . is an out-of-the-box thinker . . . has a great work ethic . . . and is a real asset in mediation.”

Todd lives in San Francisco with his wife and two children, and in addition to practicing law, enjoys hiking/backpacking, skiing, mountain biking, and coaching baseball.