Civil rights & police misconduct lawyers

Barry Scheck used blood typing to free Marion Coakley, defeated a DNA match in People v. Castro, and tried George Rodriguez’s crime-lab case against Houston.

Hilary Harris Klein of SCSJ led the 2020 suit that won North Carolina absentee voters notice and a chance to cure ballot errors, now written into state law.

Timothy P. O’Brien litigates Pittsburgh civil-rights cases involving police misconduct, municipal custom, jail abuse, recording rights, and constitutional appeals; he also serves as a neutral.

Nina Perales leads MALDEF’s national litigation and litigates voting-rights cases involving redistricting, voter registration, local election systems, and assistance at the polls.

Friedman challenged how Merrill Lynch distributed accounts and formed adviser teams. The race-discrimination case reached a $160 million settlement and changed workplace practices.

Diandra “Fu” Debrosse represents Glenn Foster Jr.’s widow over his Pickens County jail death and co-leads the national preterm infant-formula NEC litigation.

Julia Kaye challenges abortion bans and restrictions on reproductive health care. Her cases have expanded medication access and challenged limits on nurse practitioners and midwives.

Government business had moved into school-board members’ personal inboxes. Doherty carried the records requester’s case to a unanimous New Jersey Supreme Court ruling requiring a search.

Dan Stormer represented Burmese villagers against Unocal over forced labor on the Yadana pipeline and litigates civil rights cases from Pasadena.

Cary J. Hansel tries and appeals civil-rights cases involving false confessions, jail violence, government liability, school safety, class claims, and revived claims by abuse survivors.

Sherrilyn A. Ifill is Howard Law’s Vernon Jordan Distinguished Professor in Civil Rights and founding director of the 14th Amendment Center for Law & Democracy.

Anya Bidwell litigates constitutional tort, retaliation, and government-immunity cases, including Martin v. United States and Gonzalez v. Trevino.

Susan Talcott Camp litigates reproductive-rights cases. In Edwards v. Beck, she defended physicians challenging Arkansas’s twelve-week abortion prohibition.

Danielle Lang leads voting-rights litigation at Campaign Legal Center, challenging unlawful voter-roll removals and barriers to election participation.

Joseph M. Sellers is a Cohen Milstein partner and founder and co-chair of its Civil Rights & Employment practice. He argued Wal-Mart v. Dukes.

Sharon McGowan leads policy and litigation at the Human Rights Campaign. Her civil-rights work includes the trial victory in Schroer v. Billington.

Alec Karakatsanis leads Civil Rights Corps and litigates constitutional challenges to money bail, fines, fees, and wealth-based pretrial detention.

Cary S. McGehee has represented Flint residents since 2015, from the Mays class action and $626.25 million settlement to the negligence case against the EPA.

Jameel Jaffer’s First Amendment and transparency practice spans surveillance litigation, government records, and the Knight First Amendment Institute.

Ilann M. Maazel represents plaintiffs in Title IX, gender-violence, civil-rights, and appellate litigation.

Lawrence Organ is a founding partner of California Civil Rights Law Group and a plaintiff-side employment civil-rights trial lawyer.

Cecillia D. Wang is the ACLU’s National Legal Director, overseeing its national legal department, Supreme Court work, and collaboration with affiliates across the country.

Judy Rabinovitz has shaped constitutional limits on immigration detention through Zadvydas, family-separation litigation, asylum advocacy, and decades at the ACLU.

Janai S. Nelson argued Louisiana v. Callais and leads the Legal Defense Fund through the changing constitutional law of voting rights, redistricting, and democratic participation.