Andrew G. Celli, Jr.

• Served as lead counsel in dozens of civil rights and civil liberties cases arising under the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments, representing victims of police misconduct, sexual harassment/assault, and other forms of discrimination, as well as individuals and entities whose speech, voting and other constitutional rights have been infringed by government policy and practice;

• Won ballot access for nationally-recognized presidential candidates in two different New York primary elections;

• Led the Georgia case to bar Marjorie Taylor Greene from office under Section Three of the 14^th Amendment;

• Successfully challenged proposed lobbying regulations on First Amendment grounds;

• Sued to compel the State of New York to proceed with congestion pricing in New York City;

• Twice represented the Democratic Majority of the New York State Senate in state-constitutional litigation;

• Co-litigated the case that ended New York’s ban on providing food and water to people waiting to vote;

• Represented the New York City Council (four cases) and the City Council of Rochester, NY (a public referendum, two cases, and a high profile public investigation) in circumstances where those municipalities’ legislative branches were not aligned with their mayors;

• Prevailed in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals on behalf of a statewide public official in a free-speech case brought by the National Rifle Association; and

• Successfully sued to enforce the First Amendment rights of New York City newsstand operators, a global civic organization, and others.

Mr. Celli has also represented numerous public officials over the years, in cases involving their conduct in office.  These include: New York State Attorney General Letitia James, and her First Deputy, General Counsel, and Chief of Staff; former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio; former New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer; the former Superintendent of the New York State Department of Financial Services; the former Commissioner of the New York State Department of Labor; two New York City Public Advocates; and individual members of the New York City Council.  In addition, Mr. Celli has counselled the New York State Executive Chamber (Governor’s Office) and the Empire State Development Corporation on constitutional and ethics issues.

Mr. Celli also provides ethics and lobbying compliance advice and represents regulated individuals and entities before the New York State Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government and the New York City Conflicts of Interest Board.

Over the last 30 years, Mr. Celli has represented dozens of victims of police and other official misconduct while in custody or care, including persons killed by shooting and positional asphyxia, and people subjected to unlawful street arrests and improper police investigation.  Mr. Celli also regularly represents the victims of sexual assault and employment discrimination, including sexual harassment.  Finally, over the years, Mr. Celli has represented many students and faculty in confidential administrative proceedings and litigation arising out of allegations of academic, research or social misconduct and violations of school policy and Title IX.

Mr. Celli regularly handles high-profile cases and matters.  For example, he served as:

• Counsel to Paul Hudson, and other families of the victims of the bombing of PanAm Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in successful litigation against Libya (Hudson et al. v. Libya);

• Counsel to the writer and podcaster Lisa Birnbach, the primary outcry witness in E. Jean Carroll v. Donald J. Trump;

• Co-Lead Counsel in McCoy et al. v. Trump et al., putative class action for fraud against Donald Trump in connection with his involvement with the American Communications Network;

• Lead Counsel in successful class action to enforce a 1894 lease between the City of New York and the Trustees of the Metropolitan Museum of Art requiring free public access to the museum (Saska et al. v. Metropolitan Museum of Art);

• Counsel to renown art collector Hubert Neuman in litigation against Sotheby’s over ownership of the Jean-Michel Basquiat masterpiece “Flesh and Spirit,” which sold at auction for $30 million; and

• Lead Counsel to the Estate of Jodi Lane regarding claims against Con Ed and the City of New York, arising from Ms. Lane’s fatal exposure to stray voltage in the East Village of Manhattan.

The commercial side of Mr. Celli’s practice features cases and matters where businesses find themselves in disputes or negotiations with government entities, and with one another.  These cases involve high-stakes contract, partnership, unfair competition, and business tort disputes, regulatory investigations, internal corporate investigations, and ongoing business matters.  Among many others, Mr. Celli has represented The Hunt’s Point Produce Market Cooperative Association, Inc., the largest produce market in the United States; The Tribune Company and Newsday, Inc.; Penguin USA, a division of Pearson, the international publishing house; Ford Models, Inc.; EchoStar Corporation; Global Strategy Group, LLC, a public affairs, political consulting, and polling company; Atlantic Development Corp., a developer of affordable housing; The Doe Fund, a not-for-profit organization that provides housing and job training to the homeless; and many highly compensated professionals in the legal, financial services, entertainment, medical, and other sectors.

From 1999 to 2003, Mr. Celli served as Chief of the Civil Rights Bureau in the office of New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. In that capacity, Mr. Celli was responsible for many successful cases and initiatives, including the Attorney General’s Report “The New York City Police Department’s ‘Stop & Frisk’ Practices,” People by Spitzer v. Town of Wallkill (systemic police misconduct), People by Spitzer v. Delta Funding, Inc. (mortgage lending discrimination), and People by Spitzer v. Nassau County (discriminatory tax assessment scheme).

Mr. Celli served as a commissioner and vice-chair of the New York State Temporary Commission on Lobbying from 2004 through 2007, and as a commissioner of the New York State Commission on Public Integrity from 2007 through 2011. In 2012, he was a Wasserstein Public Interest Fellow at the Harvard Law School. Andy has been a member of the board of directors of the Grand Street Settlement, a Lower East Side community organization, since 1993, and was Board President from 2009 through 2012.

Mr. Celli has written and lectured widely on civil rights and civil liberties issues, appearing at the National Association of Attorneys General, Harvard Law School, New York University School of Law, Albany Law School, the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, and as a legal commentator on Court TV.

Before joining Richard Emery in practice in 1993, Mr. Celli clerked for the Hon. Charles P. Sifton on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York and was a litigation associate at Cravath Swaine & Moore.

Mr. Celli has been named a “Super Lawyer” since 2007. He was named to Lawdragon’s “500 Leading Civil Rights & Plaintiff Employment Lawyers” list in 2023.