Attorney Profiles
Joel B. Rudin, Member
Email: jbrudin@aol.com
Mr. Rudin has more than 30 years of experience and is 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, reinvestigated and won apparently hopeless cases already lost on appeal through post-conviction motions or collateral attacks, and won several of the largest civil rights settlements ($5 million, $3.5 million, and $3.1 million) 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 June, 2010, Mr. Rudin convinced Federal Judge Dora Irizarry in Brooklyn to grant a federal writ of habeas corpus, not only vacating the murder conviction of Jabbar Collins and freeing him after 16 years in prison, but prohibiting any State retrial, and dismissing the indictment with prejudice, based upon Mr. Rudin’s showing of pervasive misconduct by the Brooklyn D.A.’s Office. In November, 2009, Mr. Rudin, based upon his re-investigation of the double homicide conviction of Danny Colon, persuaded the New York Court of Appeals to vacate the conviction, due to Brady violations by the Manhattan D.A.’s Office. Previously, Mr. Rudin persuaded the Court of Appeals, on similar Brady grounds, to overturn the Brooklyn murder conviction of Brian Bond.”
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 at the time, 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 and $2.25 million in damages and fees for the wrongful prosecution and one week imprisonment of a New York City detective on corruption and homicide charges. He has been retained by other law firms as a consultant in similar cases. 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 diverse criminal trial practice has included white-collar cases involving business, securities and immigration fraud and money laundering; RICO; narcotics trafficking and possession; traditional violent crime cases such as murder, physical assault, sexual assault, and racketeering; internet pornography and internet sexual enticement, and police corruption. He recently has successfully represented the CEO of a major telecommunications company charged with money laundering, the president of a managed care health provider that was under federal and state investigation for fraud, a hedge fund manager charged with securities violations, and real estate executives under investigation for mortgage fraud
In the highly-publicized Zaher Zahrey police corruption and murder case, he won a complete acquittal, after a six-week federal trial, won Det. Zahrey’s Police Department administrative trial, and then won his client $2.25 million in damages and fees for his wrongful prosecution. In the Derek Hausman case, Mr. Rudin won Mr. Hausman’s appeal of his murder conviction, and then won a complete acquittal for self-defense at his re-trial. Mr. Rudin also recently won the acquittal of a corporate executive in a high-profile case rape case involving false allegations by a waitress at a well-known downtown nightclub.
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 Graduate School of Journalism. He has chaired or participated in a variety of law conferences dealing with criminal defense issues and recently 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.
Terri S. Rosenblatt, Associate
Email: tsr@rudinlaw.com
Terri Rosenblatt has a B.A. from Smith College (2000) and J.D. from Brooklyn Law School (2007). She has been an associate in this firm since 2007. Her practice emphasis is in criminal defense and civil rights litigation, trials and appeals, in the state and federal courts. She also is a volunteer teacher in the Prisoner Education Initiative at Rikers Island. 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.
While in law school, Ms. Rosenblatt worked as a law clerk for the Law Offices of Gerald L. Shargel, and for The Legal Aid Society. She was a member of the Moot Court honor society. Ms. Rosenblatt 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 a member of the New York State Bar and is admitted to practice in the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York.
Jabbar Collins, Legal Analyst/Paralegal
Email: jcollins@rudinlaw.com
Jabbar Collins assists the firm with his expertise in criminal and civil appeals, post-conviction motions, federal habeas corpus, federal civil rights lawsuits, the State and Federal Freedom of Information Acts and litigation, and administrative appeals and remedies for prisoners.
Mr. Collins is a uniquely self-educated individual. After growing up in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, he was wrongfully convicted on criminal charges in 1994, and spent 16 years in prison, before Federal Judge Dora Irizarry freed him on a writ of habeas corpus because of pervasive prosecutorial misconduct at his trial. While in prison, he was employed for many years at the Green Haven Correctional Facility’s law library as a law clerk, taught a course in legal research, and became a renowned “jailhouse lawyer.” In that capacity, he brought numerous successful judicial petitions under the Freedom of Information Law for himself and others, assisted several prisoners gain their freedom, argued petitions before federal judges by telephone, re-investigated his own case, and, with Mr. Rudin’s help, won his own freedom.
Mr. Collins, in conjunction with a Columbia Law School professor, co-founded a program at Green Haven providing incarcerated fathers with counseling and assistance on family issues. With Mr. Rudin, he is co-teaching an accredited course for lawyers at the Association of the Bar of the City of New York entitled, “Federal Habeas Litigation: The Fundamental Rules and Principles That All Defense Lawyers Should Know.
