Angela Cai

Angela Cai is a partner at Platkin LLP. She has unusually broad experience as a trial litigator, appellate advocate, and trusted legal strategist to complex institutions. Her representations span a variety of subjects in private and public law, from commercial disputes to constitutional law to products liability.

Prior to co-founding the firm, Angela was the Executive Assistant Attorney General for the State of New Jersey, where, as the third-ranking department official, she oversaw civil legal counseling and litigation on behalf of the State and its agencies. She led the office’s landmark affirmative enforcement cases advancing consumer protection, worker’s and civil rights, environmental protection, and firearms safety. As the architect of New Jersey’s nation-leading litigation strategy against federal overreach, Angela managed dozens of lawsuits against the federal government to restore funding, defend civil rights, and uphold the rule of law.

Previously, Angela served as Deputy Solicitor General, helping build a nascent New Jersey Office of the Solicitor General into an elite appellate practice. In that role, she drafted and supervised hundreds of civil and criminal briefs at all levels of state and federal courts and is a two-time winner of the National Association of Attorneys General’s Best Brief Award for U.S. Supreme Court briefing. A skilled oral advocate, she has personally presented over twenty arguments in federal and state appellate courts and in high-stakes trial court hearings.

Before government service, Angela was a trial litigator at two leading defense firms. She was a member of five trial teams, including three jury trials that resulted in full defense verdicts. She is experienced in every step of complex trial litigation, including bellwether case selection, expert preparation, depositions, dispositive motions, settlement strategy, and courtroom trial practice. In her pro bono practice, Angela has represented variety of clients, from medically vulnerable prisoners to victims of cyber-harassment to academics and organizations in amicus briefs before the U.S. Supreme Court. She has also taught appellate advocacy at Seton Hall Law School.

Angela clerked for the Honorable Judge Michael A. Chagares of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals and the Honorable Katherine B. Forrest of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. She is a graduate of Princeton University and Yale Law School, where she received the Colby Townsend Memorial Prize and the Stephen J. Massey Prize and served as a Coker Fellow. Prior to law school, she was an investment analyst at a leading hedge fund.

Representative Matters

• Led New Jersey’s strategy in nearly fifty multistate litigations in response to unlawful actions taken by the Trump Administration. These lawsuits resulted in numerous court victories, protected core constitutional rights, and preserved tens of billions of dollars in funding for the State of New Jersey.
• Defended New Jersey’s lifesaving firearms laws in numerous constitutional challenges in all levels of federal court, including Koons v. Platkin, a pair of pending consolidated challenges to New Jersey’s sensitive locations statute; Defense Distributed v. New Jersey Attorney General, 167 F.4th 65 (3d Cir. 2026), a challenge to New Jersey’s first-in-the-nation statute regulating 3D-printed firearms and components litigated in multiple federal circuits; and ANJRPC v. Platkin, pending consolidated challenges to New Jersey’s longstanding assault weapons and large-capacity firearms restrictions.
• Oversaw historic settlements, including the largest ever environmental settlement by a single state in the Dupont PFAS lawsuit, with the value exceeding $2 billion, and the largest non-Medicaid healthcare fraud case in New Jersey history, resulting in a $100 million settlement from Horizon Healthcare Services for improperly billing the State.
• Provided strategic leadership in New Jersey’s two landmark lawsuits against Glock, Inc. and Sig Sauer, Inc, two of the largest gun manufacturers in the world.
• Obtained successful appellate reinstatement of the indictment in a precedent-setting criminal case on New Jersey’s bribery laws. State v. O’Donnell, 225 N.J. 60 (2025).
• Represented State in numerous election-law matters, including successful defense of New Jersey’s ballot slogan law in Mazo v. N.J. Secretary of State, 54 F.4th 124 (3d Cir. 2022) and its anti-fusion voting law in In re Tom Malinowski Petition for Nomination for General Election, November 8, 2022, 481 N.J. Super. 128 (App. Div. 2025), and representing the position of the Attorney General regarding the unconstitutionality of primary ballot line statutes in the groundbreaking case Kim v. Hanlon, 99 F.4th 140 (3d Cir. 2024).
• Briefed PennEast Pipeline Co. v. New Jersey, 594 U.S. 482 (2021), on the Natural Gas Act’s delegation of the federal government’s power of eminent domain and abrogation of state sovereign immunity.
• Successfully defended numerous COVID-era executive orders yielding several precedential decisions, including N.J. Police Benevolent Association v. Murphy, 470 N.J. Super. 568 (App. Div. 2022).
• Obtained successful dismissal of defamation claim against Governor of New Jersey in Neuwirth v. State, 476 N.J. Super. 377 (App. Div. 2023).
• Argued two sets of New Jersey Supreme Court matters of first impression interpreting the State’s compassionate release laws. State v. A.M., 252 N.J. 432 (2023); State v. F.E.D., 251 N.J. 505 (2022).
• Member of successful jury trial teams in bellwether cases in national litigation concerning several pharmaceutical products, including a blood thinner, an anti-depressant, and a birth control device.
• Member of trial team focusing on expert witness development in Federal Trade Commission antitrust matter that resulted in complete dismissal of claims.
• Represented global pharmaceutical company in commercial dispute against overseas distributor in federal court.
• Represented several top U.S. State Department officials in inquiries relating to Secretary Clinton’s use of a private email account.

*The above matters were handled prior to joining Platkin LLP.