The Firm’s attorneys
practice in areas of law that involve civil rights, discrimination,
constitutional litigation and official misconduct, among others.
Peter Neufeld
Peter
Neufeld, one of the firm’s founding partners, has almost 30 years of trial
experience. Mr. Neufeld enjoys a national reputation as a civil rights and criminal
defense lawyer, successfully trying cases and arguing appeals in
state and federal courts nationwide. Mr. Neufeld has obtained numerous
substantial verdicts and settlements on behalf of victims of police
misconduct and wrongful convictions and his cases have lead to
systemic reform of criminal justice and police practices.
In addition to his civil rights practice at CNS, Mr. Neufeld,
along with CNS partner Barry Scheck, co-founded and co-directs
The Innocence Project at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. The
Project currently represents hundreds of inmates seeking post-conviction
release through DNA testing. In its 15 years of existence, The
Innocence Project has been responsible in whole or in part for
exonerating most of the more than 200 hundred men to be cleared
through post-conviction DNA testing. Mr. Neufeld has also taught
extensively on the intersection of science and law, including the
proper use of expert witnesses. His articles on these subjects
appear in both science and law publications. He has lectured on
civil rights and criminal justice before legal and scientific organizations,
state commissions and bar associations, and has taught continuing
legal education programs for judges and lawyers across the country
as well as abroad, on the subjects of forensic science, expert
witnesses and cross examination. Mr. Neufeld also taught trial
advocacy for several years at Fordham University Law School. Mr.
Neufeld, along with CNS partner Barry Scheck and Jim Dwyer of the
New York Times, is also the author of “Actual Innocence: Five Days
to Execution, and Other Dispatches From the Wrongly Convicted,”
published in 2000.
Mr. Neufeld is also on the Board of Trustees for Montefiore Medical
Center and is a member of the New York State Commission on Forensic
Science with responsibility for regulating all state and local
crime laboratories. Mr. Neufeld has also received numerous awards
and honors including, for example, The Norman S. Ostrow Award from
The New York Counsel of Defense Lawyers in 2007; the University
of Virginia School of Law, William J. Brennan, Jr. Award in 2006;
named one of the 100 Best Lawyers over several years; Trial Lawyers
for Public Justice, Trial Lawyer of the Year Finalist in 2002;
The Charles W. Froessel Award, Distinguished Service to the Legal
Community in 2001; the New York Civil Liberties Union, Florina
Lasker Award in 2001; the New York Association of Criminal Defense
Lawyers, Thurgood Marshall Award in 2001; the New York Civil Liberties
Union, The Jerry Bishop Guardian of Liberty Award in 2001; The
American Society of Criminology, President’s Award in 2001; Runner
Up for National Law Journal Lawyer of the Year in 2000; the New
York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Gideon Award
in 2000; The Legal Aid Society, Outstanding Commitment to Human
Rights award in 2000; The American Ethical Union, Elliott-Black
Award in 2000; the California Attorneys for Criminal Justice, Significant
Contributions of Criminal Justice award in 2000; the Southern Center
for Human Rights, Equal Justice Award in 2000; and the New York
University School of Law, and the Public Interest Foundation award
in 1999.
Prior to entering private practice, Mr. Neufeld was a staff attorney
for many years with The Legal Aid Society in the Bronx.
Mr. Neufeld received his law degree in 1975 from New York University
School of Law and his undergraduate degree from the University
of Wisconsin in 1972.
Barry Scheck
Barry
Scheck, one of the firm’s founding partners, has more than 30
years of trial experience in state and federal courts nationwide. Mr. Scheck enjoys a national reputation
as a criminal defense and civil rights trial lawyer, and has
successfully tried cases and argued appeals in state and federal
courts nationwide. Mr. Scheck’s criminal and civil trials
have redefined and expanded the rights of victims of police misconduct
and wrongful convictions throughout the country.
In addition to his civil rights practice at CNS, Mr. Scheck is also
a Professor of Law and the Emeritus Director of Clinical Education the Benjamin
N. Cardozo School of Law.
Mr. Scheck, along with CNS partner Peter Neufeld co-directs The Innocence
Project at Cardozo. The Project currently represents hundreds of inmates seeking post-conviction release through DNA testing. In its 15 years of existence, The Innocence Project has been responsible in whole or in part for exonerating most of the more than 200 hundred men to be cleared through post-conviction DNA testing.
Barry Scheck has also published extensively on a variety of
legal issues ranging from trial practice to forensic science
and, along with CNS partner Peter Neufeld and Jim Dwyer of the
New York Times, is also the author of “Actual Innocence:
Five Days to Execution, and Other Dispatches from the Wrongly
Convicted,” published in
2000. Mr. Scheck has also been a Commissioner of the New York
State Forensic Science Review Board since 1994, a Commissioner
of the National Institute of Justice Commission on the Future
of DNA Evidence from 1997-2000, an Advisor for AGID-Lab since
2001, and on the advisory board for Celera Genetic, Project to
Identify Dead at World Trade Center. Mr. Scheck is also an active
member and the past president (2004-2005) of the National Associations
of Criminal Defense Lawyers from 2004-2005, and from 1995-1997
served on the American Bar Association Special President’s
Commission on High Profile Trials.
Over the years Mr. Scheck has received numerous honors and awards for
his trial work and advocacy including, for example: the New York
State Bar Association Charles F. Crimi Memorial Award for outstanding
practitioner in 1995; the National Association of Criminal Defense
Lawyers Robert C. Heeney Award for recognition of outstanding
contributions in 1996; the New York State Division of Criminal
Justice Services Distinguished Defense Attorney Award in 1999;
the National Law Journal Runner-up for Lawyer of the Year in
2000, the New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers “Gideon
Award” in 2000; the Southern
Center for Human Rights Equal Justice Award in 2000, the New
York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers - Thurgood
Marshall Award in 2001; the New York Civil Liberties Union Florina
Lasker Award, “for
courage in the defense of civil liberties” in 2001 and
was named one of the National Law Journal's 100
most influential lawyers in America in 2006.
Prior to becoming a law professor and entering private practice, Mr.
Scheck was a staff attorney with The Legal Aid Society in the
Bronx.
Mr. Scheck has also taught trial practice, appellate advocacy, legal
ethics and instructed on the forensic sciences to judges, lawyers and
students nationwide. Mr. Scheck has been an instructor, for example,
at the National College of Criminal Defense Lawyers, NITA, and the
NAACP annual training seminar for death penalty lawyers and has been
retained to train lawyers in trial practice at major Wall Street law
firms including Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy; Cadwalader,
Wickersham & Taft; and Paul Weiss Rifkind.
Mr.
Scheck is a Graduate of the Boalt Hall
School of Law, University of California at Berkeley, and a graduate
of Yale University with a B.A. in American Studies/Economics.
Nick Brustin
Nick Brustin, a partner in the firm, has broad experience in federal
and state trial and appellate courts in New York and throughout
the country. Mr. Brustin’s civil rights practice principally
involves representing individual plaintiffs nationwide who have
been the victims of police brutality or other official misconduct,
and individuals who have been wrongfully convicted and incarcerated.
In 2006, Mr. Brustin successfully litigated and then obtained
a multi-million dollar jury verdict in federal court in Indiana
on behalf of Larry Mayes, an African-American man who spent more
than 18 years in prison for a crime he did not commit as a result
of individual and systemic police misconduct in the Hammond Police
Department.
Mr. Brustin is currently representing victims of police misconduct
and those who have been wrongfully convicted in New York, Louisiana,
Kentucky, Indiana, New Jersey, Tennessee, Missouri and Kansas. Mr.
Brustin was also an adjunct professor of law at Fordham University
School of Law and has lectured on civil rights issues, appearing
at the annual NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund Civil Rights
Conference and various civil rights continuing education seminars
around the country.
Before joining the Firm, Mr. Brustin was an Honors Program Trial Attorney
with the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department
of Justice, where he worked on school desegregation cases including
the DOJ’s successful efforts to integrate The Citadel, the Military
College of South Carolina. Mr. Brustin also was associated with Beldock, Levine & Hoffman where he focused on civil rights and employment discrimination litigation including the firm’s class action race discrimination lawsuit against the New York City
Department of Parks and Recreation.
Mr. Brustin received his law degree from Fordham University School
of Law, a Masters Degree in Education from the Harvard Graduate
School of Education and his undergraduate degree from Brown University.
Deborah L. Cornwall
Debi Cornwall, a partner in the firm, joined CNS in 2001, during which
time she has litigated civil-rights cases at both the trial and
appellate levels around the country on behalf of DNA exonerees
and victims of police brutality. In 2006 and 2007, Ms. Cornwall, along
with Peter Neufeld, successfully litigated and then obtained multi-million
dollar verdicts from Virginia and California federal juries respectively,
on behalf of Earl Washington Jr., a mentally retarded man who falsely
confessed to a murder he did not commit and on behalf of Herman
Atkins, a black man falsely convicted of raping a white woman.
In addition to securing substantial verdicts, the litigation led
to reform-oriented broader audits in both states.
Ms.
Cornwall has represented civil rights plaintiffs in California,
Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Tennessee
and Virginia. She has
prosecuted successful appeals in the Fourth, Sixth, Ninth Circuits
and New York State Courts.
Before joining CNS, Ms. Cornwall was a law clerk to the Honorable Robert
W. Sweet in the United States District Court for the Southern District
of New York. She has also worked with the NAACP Legal
Defense & Educational Fund, the Southern Center for Human Rights,
and the Federal Defender Division of the Legal Aid Society in New
York City. She received a J.D. from Harvard Law School,
where she was the captain of the winning team in the final round
of the Ames Moot Court Competition and represented indigent criminal
defendants through the Criminal Justice Institute. Her
undergraduate degree is from Brown University, magna cum laude and
with honors.
Jennifer Laurin
Ms. Laurin joined CNS in 2005. She previously clerked for the Honorable Guido Calabresi on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and
the Honorable Thomas Griesa on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Ms. Laurin graduated from Columbia Law School in 2003, where she was
a Harlan Fisk Stone Scholar, a Kent Scholar, and the recipient
of the 2003 John Ordronaux Prize, awarded to the top student in the graduating
class. While in law school she served as Executive Articles Editor of the Columbia
Law Review, represented incarcerated individuals in parole appeals
through the Columbia Prisoners and Families Clinic, and was a research
assistant to Professor Jeffrey Fagan and Professor Susan Sturm. Ms.
Laurin interned with the Legal Aid Society Capital Defense Division,
attorneys Michael Tigar and Daniel Meyers, and CNS. Ms. Laurin graduated from Earlham College with a B.A. in politics, and was elected to membership in Phi Beta
Kappa.
Ms. Laurin is admitted to practice in New York, the U.S. District Courts
for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, and the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
Monica R. Shah
Ms.
Shah joined CNS in 2006. She previously clerked for the Honorable
Allyne R. Ross of United States District Court for the Eastern
District of New York. In 2005, Ms. Shah graduated from Columbia
Law School, where she was a Harlan Fisk Stone scholar. While in
law school, she also served as Articles Editor of the Columbia
Law Review and a constitutional law teaching assistant for Professor
Kendall Thomas. She interned at the Asian American Legal Defense
and Education Fund, the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem,
and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Ms. Shah graduated
cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania with a B.A.
in English and International Relations in 2000.
Ms.
Shah is admitted to practice in New York, Massachusetts, and the
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
Anna Benvenutti Hoffmann
Ms. Hoffmann joined CNS in 2006. She
previously clerked for the Hon. Reginald C. Lindsay of the District
of Massachusetts. In 2004 Ms. Hoffmann graduated third in her class
from New York University School of Law, magna
cum laude and Order
of the Coif, where she received the Benjamin F. Butler Memorial
Award for “unusual distinction in scholarship, character
and professional activities.” While in law school, Ms. Hoffmann
worked in NYU’s Capital Defender Clinic at the Equal Justice Initiative
of Alabama and served as a torts teaching assistant for Prof. Mark Geistfeld. She interned at the Innocence Project, Legal Aid Society Criminal Defense Division in Manhattan and the CPCS Public Defender Division in Cambridge. Ms. Hoffmann graduated cum
laude from Harvard College with an A.B. in Government in 2000.
Ms.
Hoffmann is admitted to practice in New York, Massachusetts and
the Federal District of Massachusetts.
