Bob Craft is the senior litigation partner in the Litigation Practice Group of Holland & Knight's New York City office. Mr. Craft’s practice is devoted primarily to providing advice and conducting litigation concerning aviation, product liability, mass disaster, and insurance matters.
In aviation, he has been lead counsel to airlines and manufacturers of aircraft and components, especially in major air crash cases and NTSB investigations throughout the United States. For example, he was lead counsel for TWA in the Flight 800 investigation and litigation. Most recently, he has been US lead counsel for Turkish Airlines in connection with the Flight 1951 crash in Amsterdam in 2009.
In non-aviation cases, he has extensive experience as lead counsel in numerous product liability cases across the United States, including mass-disaster cases, for manufacturers of all kinds of products, including industrial machinery, railcars, chemicals, electrical equipment, engines, toys, medical equipment, and household consumer products, and he has counseled these manufacturers on preventive measures. In insurance cases, he has advised and represented insurers in dealing with the interpretation of policies, coverage issues, and claims settlement procedures.
He has been a member and officer of various city, state, national, and international bar associations’ committees on aviation law and product liability law, and was a founder and the second chairman of the Council of New York Law Associates, now renamed the Lawyers’ Alliance for New York.
Mr. Craft is a frequent speaker and writer on the handling of mass disaster cases, product liability, insurance, and aviation and space issues. His articles have appeared in the Journal of Air Law and Commerce, The New York Times, the National Law Journal, the Journal of Space Law, and various bar association and foreign publications. He has lectured to many industry and bar groups. He chaired the panel on "Accident Investigation, Proprietary Information, and Tort Litigation" at the NTSB's April 2000 Symposium on Transportation Safety and the Law, and in 2008-2009 he gave two lectures at the NTSB on the lawyer's role in handling accident investigations.