- Ray Beckerman
Ray Beckerman is an attorney in New York City, a partner in the firm of Vandenberg & Feliu, LLP. He is noted for his analysis and commentary on the RIAA's campaign, commenced in 2003, of copyright infringement lawsuits against United States individuals. The RIAA accuses these individuals, some of whom Beckerman represents as legal counsel, of unauthorized peer-to-peer file sharing of music. Beckerman was admitted to the bar on January 17, 1979, …
- John Adams
John Adams (August 26, 1778 Oak Hill, Durham, New York - September 25, 1854 Catskill, New York) was a United States Congressman from New York. He studied law, and taught school in Durham. He was admitted to the bar in 1805, and began to practice in Durham. He was appointed the surrogate of Greene County, New York in 1810. He was a member of the New York State Assembly from 1812 to 1813.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882 - April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was the thirty-second President of the United States. Elected to four terms in office, he served from 1933 to 1945, and is the only U.S. president to have served more than two terms. A central figure of the 20th century during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war, …
- Lynne Stewart
Lynne F. Stewart (born October 8, 1939) is an American radical activist. As an attorney, she represented controversial, and often unpopular, defendants, including black nationalists, members of the Weather Underground, Mafia figures, and convicted terrorists. In 2005, Stewart was accused of helping pass messages from her client, Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, an Egyptian cleric convicted of planning terror attacks, to his followers in al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, …
- Bruce Cutler
Bruce Cutler, born 1948, is a criminal defense lawyer based in New York City who gained notoriety in the 1980s for defending mobster John Gotti. Cutler won three acquittals for Gotti, centering his legal strategy on the Lifestyle Defense to combat the RICO charges against his client. Cutler's signature courtroom technique was his vigorous cross-examination of prosecution witnesses, who agreed to testify against Gotti only in exchange for lighter sentences.
- John Jay
John Jay was an American politician, statesman, revolutionary, diplomat, and jurist. Considered one of the "founding fathers" of the United States, Jay served in the Continental Congress, and was elected President of that body in 1778. During and after the American Revolution, he was a minister (ambassador) to Spain and France, helping to fashion American foreign policy and to secure favorable peace terms from the British and French.
- Morgan Lewis
Morgan Lewis (October 16, 1754 - April 7, 1844) was an American lawyer, politician and military commander. Of Welsh descent, he was the son of Francis Lewis, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He graduated from Princeton (then the College of New Jersey) in 1773 and began to study law on the advice of his father. His studies were interrupted by military service during the Revolutionary War, and ultimately he became Quartermaster General for New York.
- Glenn Greenwald
Glenn Greenwald is a former constitutional and civil rights litigator in New York City, first at the Manhattan firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, and then at the litigation firm he founded, Greenwald, Christoph. Greenwald litigated numerous high-profile and significant constitutional cases in federal and state courts around the country, including multiple First Amendment challenges.
- David Boies
David Boies (born March 11, 1941) is a lawyer and Chairman of Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP. He has been involved in various high-profile cases in the United States.
- Andrew Cuomo
Andrew Cuomo was elected the 64th Attorney General of New York State on November 7, 2006. As Attorney General, Cuomo is the highest ranking law enforcement officer for the State, responsible for representing New York and its residents in legal matters. Cuomo has a long record of fighting for justice and championing government reform. In 1996 President Clinton nominated Cuomo to serve in his Cabinet as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
- John Quinn
John Quinn (1870-1924) was an Irish-American corporate lawyer in New York, who for a time was an important patron of major figures of post-impressionism and literary modernism, and collector in particular of original manuscripts. He met W. B. Yeats in 1902, and was a major supporter. Quinn was born in Tiffin, Ohio, to an Irish baker/grocer, James W. Quinn, and Mary Quinlaw Quinn, and grew up in nearby Fostoria, Ohio, where his parents relocated in 1871.
- Grover Cleveland
Stephen Grover Cleveland (March 18 1837 - June 24 1908) was the twenty-second and twenty-fourth President of the United States, and the only President to serve two non-consecutive terms (1885-1889 and 1893-1897). He was the only Democrat elected to the Presidency in the era of Republican political domination between 1860 and 1912, after the American Civil War. His admirers praise him for his bedrock honesty, independence, integrity, …
- Michael Chertoff
Michael Chertoff , Secretary of Homeland Security, stated in a speech that "in setting up the new center, we've reorganized the way we combat these criminal organizations. And we really emphasized and facilitated a team approach at all levels of government and with the private sector to make sure we're bringing all the elements of national power to bear in dealing with what is a national and transnational problem."
- Felix Frankfurter
Felix Frankfurter was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
- Elihu Root
Elihu Root (February 15, 1845 - February 7, 1937) was an American lawyer and statesman and the 1912 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. He was the prototype of the 20th century "wise man", who shuttled between high-level government positions in Washington, D.C. and private-sector legal practice in New York City.
- William H. Seward
William Henry Seward, Sr. (May 16, 1801 - October 10, 1872) was a Governor of New York, United States Senator and the United States Secretary of State under Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson.
- Charles Evans Hughes
Charles Evans Hughes (April 11, 1862 - August 27, 1948) was Governor of New York, United States Secretary of State, Associate Justice and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
- William Kunstler
William Moses Kunstler (July 7, 1919 - September 4, 1995) was an American jurist, self-described "radical lawyer" and civil rights activist.
- William O. Douglas
William Orville Douglas was a United States Supreme Court Associate Justice. With a term lasting thirty-six years and seven months, he remains the longest-serving justice in the history of the Court.
- Barry Scheck
Barry C. Scheck (b. September 19, 1949 in Queens, NY) is an American lawyer. Although he received national media attention while serving on O.J. Simpson's defense team, winning an acquittal in the highly publicized murder trial, Scheck's more influential legal work lies in his dedication to exposing wrongful convictions as director of the Innocence Project.
- Floyd Abrams
Floyd Abrams is a member of the Firm's Executive Committee and its litigation practice group. Floyd has a national trial and appellate practice and extensive experience in high-visibility matters, often involving First Amendment, intellectual property, insurance, public policy and regulatory issues.
- Joshua Colangelo-Bryan
Joshua Colangelo-Bryan is a trial attorney and an associate with Dorsey & Whitney LLP in New York. He received his B.A. from Oberlin College in 1992 and his J.D. from the University of Washington School of Law, Seattle, Washington in 1999. In 2005, Colangelo-Bryan represented some of the Bahrainis held at the Guantanamo Bay detainment camp.
- Roy Cohn
Roy Marcus Cohn (February 20, 1927 - August 2, 1986) was an American lawyer who came to prominence during the investigations by Senator Joseph McCarthy into alleged Communists in the U.S. government, especially during the Army-McCarthy Hearings. A highly controversial figure, he wielded tremendous political power at times.
- Mario Cuomo
Mario Matthew Cuomo (born June 15, 1932) served as the Governor of New York from 1983 to 1994. Cuomo became nationally known for his rousing keynote speech at the 1984 Democratic National Convention and the subsequent speculation over the next two decades that he might run for the Democratic Party nomination for President of the United States.
- Benjamin Brafman
Benjamin Brafman is a criminal defense attorney based in New York. He maintains a small firm (Brafman Associates) in a prominent NYC building and has handled cases for some high profile celebrity clients. Ben Brafman's first such client was Sean "P. Diddy" Combs, who was ultimately acquitted from his 1999 illegal weapons and bribery charges. The criminal charges stemmed from a nightclub brawl, while accompanied by then-girlfriend Jennifer Lopez and Combs' usual entourage, …
- Ed Koch
Edward Irving Koch (born December 12, 1924; pronounced to rhyme with "Scotch") was a United States Congressman from 1969 to 1977 and the Mayor of New York City from 1978 to 1989.
- Harlan Fiske Stone
Harlan Fiske Stone (October 11 1872 - April 22 1946) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as the dean of Columbia Law School, Attorney General of the United States, Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and later Chief Justice of the United States.
- Washington Irving
Washington Irving was an American author of the early 19th century. Best known for his short stories "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip van Winkle" (both of which appear in his book "The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon"), he was also a prolific essayist, biographer and historian. Irving and James Fenimore Cooper were the first American writers to earn acclaim in Europe, and Irving is said to have encouraged authors such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, …
- Evan Wolfson
Evan Wolfson (b. February 4, 1957) is an American civil rights attorney and advocate. He is the founder and executive director of Freedom to Marry, a national non-profit organization that advocates legalization of same-sex marriage. Wolfson authored...
- Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Robert Francis Kennedy Jr. (b. January 17, 1954), often referred to as RFK Jr. or Bobby Jr., is the third of eleven children born to Ethel Skakel Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy. He is an environmental lawyer and co-host of "Ring of Fire" on the Air America Radio network.
- Elliott Abrams
Elliott Abrams (born January 24, 1948) is an American lawyer who has served in foreign policy positions for two Republican U.S. Presidents, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. During Bush's first term in office, he was appointed the post of Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director on the National Security Council for Near East and North African Affairs.
- Burt Pugach
Burt Pugach (born 1927) is a New York lawyer who spent fourteen years in prison for hiring a man to throw lye in Linda Riss's face. In 1959 he was a married man with a child dating Linda Riss, a 21 year old woman. When Riss broke off their relationship, Pugach hired three men to attack her, throwing lye in her face and blinding her. Pugach went to jail for 14 years, during which time he corresponded with Riss.
- Jacob Burns
Jacob Burns was a prominent New York attorney specializing in corporate law and estates and trusts. He was a philanthropist, a painter, and a corporate leader. He was a founder and, for several years, chairman of the board of U.S. Vitamin and Pharmaceutical Corp., a public company that merged with Revlon in 1966. Mr. Burns was a member of the Revlon board of directors from 1966 to 1985.
- Denny Chin
Judge Denny Chin is a judge on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Chin was nominated by President Clinton on March 24, 1994, and confirmed in August of that same year. He is the first Asian American appointed as a U.S. District Judge outside of the Ninth Circuit. Judge Chin was born in 1954 in Hong Kong and came to the U.S. in 1956. He received his Bachelor's degree from Princeton University in 1975.
- Robert M. Morgenthau
Robert Morris Morgenthau (born July 31, 1919) is currently the District Attorney for New York County, which is coterminous with Manhattan.
- Samuel Jones
Samuel Jones (May 26, 1769 New York City - August 9, 1853 Cold Spring Harbor, New York was an American lawyer and politician. He graduated from Columbia University in 1790. He then studied law in his father's office and was admitted to the bar. He was a member of the New York State Assembly from 1812 to 1814. In 1823, he became Recorder of New York City. From 1826 to 1828 he was Chancellor of the State.
- Martin Galvin
Martin Galvin is an Irish American lawyer and Irish republican political activist.
- Greg Giraldo
Greg Giraldo (born 1965 in New York City) is an American stand-up comedian, based in New York. Before becoming a comedian, Giraldo, a Regis High School, Columbia University and Harvard Law School graduate, worked as a lawyer. He is known for his distinct delivery and his skills in ranting, never allowing his rhythm to be broken. Giraldo performs regularly at the Comedy Cellar in Manhattan. Giraldo was a regular panelist on "Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn".
- John F. Kennedy Jr.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Jr., often referred to as John F. Kennedy, Jr., JFK Jr., John Jr. or John-John, was an American lawyer, journalist, socialite and publisher. He was the son of President John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and the younger brother of Caroline Kennedy (as well as of the deceased Arabella Kennedy and older brother of the deceased Patrick Bouvier Kennedy).
- Ronald Dworkin
Ronald Dworkin, QC, FBA (born 1931) is an American legal philosopher, and currently professor of Jurisprudence at University College London and the New York University School of Law. He is known for his contributions to legal philosophy and political philosophy. His theory of "law as integrity" is one of the leading contemporary views of the nature of law.