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Robert H. Coughlin, Jr. became a member of Flink Smith LLC in November of 2006, having been “Of Counsel” to Flink Smith since 2003. By 2003, Rob and Ed Flink had known each other for over 15 years, both as fellow litigators in the Capital District and as colleagues in the New York State Bar Association. Rob had also become well acquainted with Jay Smith, having recruited Jay for Rob’s former firm at around the same time that Jay decided to join Ed’s firm. Rob’s affiliation with Ed and Jay in 2003 was thus a natural and in 2005 Rob merged his private practice with Flink Smith, at which point Rob began to serve on the firm’s management team.
Rob graduated from Hamilton College in 1978 and Albany Law School of Union University in 1981, where he was inducted into the Order of Barristers. After law school, Rob became law clerk to New York State Supreme Court Justice Robert C. Williams. Rob is admitted to practice in all New York State Courts as well as the United States Federal District Courts for the Northern, Western and Southern Districts of New York and the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Since completing his service as a law clerk to a New York State Supreme Court Justice, Rob has been a trial lawyer, initially working on commercial construction matters and then as an associate and, later, partner at a firm which concentrated its practice in the representation of insurance carriers and their insureds. During that time, Rob represented both insured defendants and injured plaintiffs and gained more than 20 years experience in trial advocacy and civil litigation. Over time, Rob sought to broaden his perspective, and in 2000, he left his partnership firm to open his own office in Saratoga Springs where Rob resides. The association with Flink Smith three years later gave Rob the opportunity to continue to develop his own business base in his own community, Rob working out of both the Saratoga Springs and Latham offices. He currently concentrates in the area of civil litigation with an emphasis on trial practice and insurance law, negligence, Labor Law and commercial matters.
Rob serves on the Executive Committee of the Torts, Insurance and Compensation Law Section of the New York State Bar Association and is a member of the NYSBA Committee on the Tort System. He is also on the Board of Directors of the Capital District Trial Lawyers Association. In the past, Rob has served on the NYSBA Committee on Attorneys’ Fees, as well as on the Board of Directors and as Vice-President and President of the Defense Research Institute of Northeastern New York. Rob has been a lecturer for the NYSBA and has been awarded the Chair of the Year Award by the TICL Section on two separate occasions.
Rob resides in Saratoga Springs with his wife of 25 years, Eleanor Mullaney, also an attorney. They have two children. Robert is a college graduate and Kate, a college student. Rob enjoys travel, skiing and outdoor activities with his wife and family, reading and maintaining his fluency in French, in which he majored at college.
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