Attorney Profiles
Joel B. Rudin, Member
Email: jbrudin@aol.com
Mr. Rudin, 55, is the principal in the firm. He has a diverse practice, including state and federal criminal trials and appeals, post-conviction motions, and civil rights lawsuits. He has won a leading federal criminal case in the United States Supreme Court, won acquittals at trial in numerous state and federal criminal cases, and won the largest civil rights settlement ($5 million) for a wrongfully convicted criminal defendant in New York State history. He has taken on the District Attorneys in three New York City counties, winning substantial civil settlements in innovative state and federal civil lawsuits by showing their responsibility for prosecutorial misconduct.
Mr. Rudin’s appellate practice has included three cases decided on the merits by the United States Supreme Court, two of which he personally argued and two of which he won, unanimously. One such case, Gomez v. United States, is the Supreme Court’s leading decision restricting the authority of federal magistrate judges to preside at federal criminal trials. He has authored several amicus briefs in the Supreme Court on behalf of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) on issues of national interest. Mr. Rudin has successfully handled numerous state and federal criminal appeals. In the civil context, he won the leading appellate decisions in New York holding criminal prosecutors and the municipalities that employ them civilly liable for misconduct in criminal investigations and trials.
Mr. Rudin’s most highly-publicized successes have involved the notorious Bronx Day Care Center sexual abuse cases and his subsequent handling of the Alberto Ramos wrongful conviction civil lawsuit. Mr. Rudin first succeeded in overturning the convictions of four innocent defendants, serving from 25 to 90 years in prison, in the day care cases. One client was a prominent Yonkers minister and civil rights leader, the Rev. Nathaniel T. Grady, Sr., who spent 10 years in prison before Mr. Rudin won a federal habeas petition on the ground of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel and then won Rev. Grady’s second chance at a state appeal. Mr. Rudin succeeded in winning the freedom of Alberto Ramos, who had spent seven years in prison on a false child rape conviction, by showing that prosecutors had withheld exculpatory evidence proving Mr. Ramos’s innocence. Mr. Rudin has since been retained to re-investigate numerous other state and federal criminal cases and has succeeded for many of these clients in overturning their convictions.
In the Ramos case, after overturning Mr. Ramos’s conviction, Mr. Rudin won a $5 million civil rights settlement, the largest wrongful imprisonment damage award in New York State history, by bringing a groundbreaking lawsuit holding the City of New York responsible for a pattern of misconduct by the Bronx District Attorney’s Office. More recently, Mr. Rudin won $3.5 million and $3.1 million settlements from New York City for clients who were victimized by misconduct by the Queens and Brooklyn District Attorney’s Offices. He has been retained by other law firms as a consultant in similar cases modeled after his. Mr. Rudin also has won substantial six-figure settlements for victims of police misconduct, such as false arrest and excessive use of force.
Mr. Rudin’s criminal trial practice has included white-collar cases involving business, securities and immigration fraud, and money laundering; large-scale or international narcotics trafficking; traditional violent crime cases such as murder, physical assault, sexual assault, and racketeering; internet sexual enticement, and police corruption. His recent clients include the CEO of a leading telecommunications company, the president of a managed care health provider, a hedge fund manager charged with securities fraud, and real estate executives under investigation for mortgage fraud. At the same time, he has been handling the appeals or collateral attacks on the murder, drug trafficking, and sex crime convictions of several state and federal defendants, and has been defending a complex federal racketeering case.
Mr. Rudin is admitted to practice in New York State, the United States Supreme Court, the United States Courts of Appeal for the Second, Fourth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Circuits, and the United States District Courts for the Southern, Eastern and Northern Districts of New York. He has lectured at the New York University School of Law, Fordham Law School, and the Columbia School of Journalism. He has chaired or participated in a variety of law conferences dealing with criminal defense issues and earlier this year testified about wrongful convictions and prosecutorial misconduct before the New York State Bar Association's Task Force on Wrongful Convictions. He is a member of the Bar Association of the City of New York, where he has served on the Criminal Advocacy Committee, has served on the Ethics Committee of the New York County Lawyers Association, and belongs to the National, State, and New York City Associations of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
Mr. Rudin is a graduate of Cornell University (1974), where he was managing editor of The Cornell Daily Sun. After spending a year as a legal reporter for The Springfield Union newspaper in Springfield, Massachusetts, he attended New York University School of Law (Class of 1978), where he was on the Journal of International Law and Politics, participated in the Criminal Law clinical program, and argued a federal criminal appeal as a student before the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He is married and has two teenage children.
Benjamin Charles Fishman, Associate
Email: ben.fishman@gmail.com
Ben Fishman, 31, is a graduate of Brown University (1999). After employment as a civilian investigator for the New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board, he attended New York University School of Law, where he was an Articles Editor on the Law Review, published a note, “Binding Corporations to Human Rights Norms Through Public Law Settlement” (October 2006), and graduated cum laude.
He has been admitted since 2007 in the New York State courts and in the United States District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, and is a member of the Bar Association of the City of New York. His emphasis has been on motion and appellate practice in state and federal criminal cases and federal civil rights litigation. He recently returned from a leave of absence as a field organizer in Wisconsin for the Barack Obama presidential campaign.
Terri S. Rosenblatt, Associate
Email: terri.rosenblatt@gmail.com
Terri Rosenblatt, 29, has a B.A. from Smith College (2000) and a degree from Brooklyn Law School (2007), where she worked as a law clerk for the Law Offices of Gerald L. Shargel, was a clinical intern for The Legal Aid Society, a law clerk for the Federal Trade Commission, a member of the Moot Court Honor Society, and a semi-finalist in the Regent Law School Constitutional Law competition. She is the co-author of “False Consensus Bias in Contract Interpretation,” published in the Columbia Law Review, 108 Colum. L. Rev. 1268 (June 2008).
Ms. Rosenblatt is admitted to practice in New York State. Her practice emphasis has been criminal defense and civil rights litigation, trials and appeals, in the state and federal courts. She is also a volunteer teacher in the Prisoner Education Initiative at Rikers Island, New York. She is a member of the Bar Association of the City of New York, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the New York County Lawyers’ Association, and the Women’s Bar Association.
Anne Elizabeth Zerbe, Associate
Email: annezerbe@gmail.com
Anne Zerbe, 28, has a B.A. from the University of Michigan (2002) and her J.D. from the University of Florida, Levin College of Law (2006), where she won first place in the Regionals and third place in the Nationals, TANG National Constitutional Moot Court Competition, was vice president of Moot Court, and was on the editorial board of the Journal of Technology Law and Policy.
Ms. Zerbe is admitted in New York State and the U.S. District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York. Her practice emphasis has been on defending state and federal criminal trials and plaintiff’s civil rights litigation.
