Results

Highlights of ECBAWM Wrongful Conviction Cases

ECBAWM is one of the country’s leading wrongful conviction firms. We have recovered tens of millions of dollars on behalf of our clients who have been wrongfully imprisoned for crimes they did not commit. Our attorneys work at all levels on these matters from criminal defense, to post-trial investigation, motions to vacate sentences, habeaus proceedings, criminal appeals, trials, and civil claims based on actual innocence and violations of civil rights.

City of New York v. Nicholas Hillary

After a three-week trial, Oral Nicholas Hillary was acquitted of the 2011 murder of Garrett Phillips, a 12-year-old resident of Potsdam, New York.

Saving the Highline

The Firm represented the Friends of the Highline, New York’s City Counsel and a group of developers, architects, government officials, and Chelsea and Greenwich Village residents in their effort to turn an unused elevated rail line on the lower West Side of Manhattan into a public promenade.

Breest v. Haggis

The firm represents a young woman who alleges she was raped by the director Paul Haggis after a film premiere in New York City in 2017. This is one of the few cases of the MeToo era that is being litigated in civil court.

NFHA v. Facebook

Facebook ultimately agreed to a settlement of $2.45 million and far-reaching changes across Facebook’s advertising platform for housing, employment, and credit advertising.

The Bronx Criminal Court Delay Case

To support the institutional reform of New York City’s Courts, the firm filed a lawsuit challenging widespread delays in misdemeanor cases in Bronx Criminal Court.

New York Tampon Tax Class Action

The Firm’s work on behalf of five women to challenge the state taxation of tampons as discriminatory on the basis of gender, lead directly to legislation to end the illegal tax.

The Jill Stein 2016 Presidential Recount Case

The Firm represented presidential candidate Jill Stein to champion a recount of the 2016 Pennsylvania federal vote. The lawsuit challenged Pennsylvania’s use of paperless voting systems, as well as its byzantine, anti- voter recount procedures.

The Carey Case

On behalf of the family of Jonathan Carey, the firm helped bring attention to the severe institutional dysfunction of New York State’s care for the disabled and obtained a $5 million settlement for the family.

The “Bronx Zoo” disability abuse case

In what is believed to be one of the largest settlements of its kind in New York’s history, the firm obtained $6 million for three families of abused disabled residents in a State-run group home in the Bronx, known as the Union Avenue IRA.

T.E. v. Pine Bush Central School District

The Firm obtained ground-breaking policy reform and nearly $4.48 million for five Jewish students in the Pine Bush Central school district who were victims of pervasive anti-Semitism, after the district failed, for years, to take action to protect the Jewish students from anti-Semitic bullying, slurs and other intimidation.

McBean v. City of New York

The Firm obtained a $33 million recovery for 100,000 persons who were illegally strip searched upon admission to a New York City jail after being arraigned solely on misdemeanor or lesser offenses.

Ingles v. Toro

Together with The Legal Aid Society Prisoners’ Rights Project and Sullivan and Cromwell, the Firm successfully litigated a class action against the New York City Department of Corrections on behalf of inmates housed at Rikers Island.

Sykes v. Mel Harris & Assocs

In the largest settlement of its kind, the Firm obtained $60 million for a class of New Yorkers who were subjected to fraudulent debt collection practices.

In re Visa Check/MasterMoney Antitrust Litigation

In one of the largest and most important antitrust litigations in U.S. history, the Firm joined with co-counsel to represent over 5 million U.S. merchants who alleged tying and monopolization claims against Visa and MasterCard.

Hagerman v. Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya

The firm recovered more than $40 million as part of historic $2.7 billion settlement with the government of Libya for the downing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. This litigation created the terrorist exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act (FSIA).

Tyson v. City of New York

In what was, at the time, the largest civil rights settlement in New York history, the Firm obtained $50 million for a class of 62,000 people challenging the constitutionality of pre-arraignment strip-searches.

Board of Estimate of The City of New York v. Morris

Founding partner, Richard Emery, won a landmark victory in the Supreme Court of the United States that changed the structure of New York City’s government.