Jeffrey Schwartz
Mr. Schwartz earned his B.A. in Psychology from Yeshiva University’s Yeshiva College and was awarded his J.D. by its Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. For over 22 years Jeffrey Todd Schwartz has been specializing in complex state and federal criminal and civil matters. He was admitted to the Bar of New York and New Jersey in 1987 and has been admitted to the Supreme Court of the United States since 1992. He has extensive trial and appellate experience in most types of criminal matters and in defending civil, administrative and departmental actions as well.
For six years Mr. Schwartz served as an Assistant District Attorney in the Queen’s County District Attorney’s Office. He was a founding member of both its Career Criminal Major Crimes and Narcotic Trial Bureaus and was assigned for two years to the Homicide/ Investigations Bureau. Mr. Schwartz has represented a wide variety of professionals facing licensing consequences in the judicial, political, legal, medical, financial and business spheres. He has also represented police officers for the Patrolman Benevolent Association, world champion, professional and Olympic athletes, union officials and assorted artists of note with public images to protect.
He has extensive experience in the handling of: police officer and civilian homicides, kidnapping, arson, rape, police brutality, narcotics, assault, robbery, burglary, weapons possession, federal R.I.C.O. and state O.C.C.A., child and elder abuse, racial-bias, theft, credit-card, white-collar, Medicare/ Medicaid insurance fraud and intoxicated driving cases. He is well versed in the rules, technology and applicability of all kinds of evidence, including: forensic science and pathology, crime scene interpretation, accident reconstruction, D.N.A., ballistics, blood spatter, Breathalyzer, fingerprint, wire tapping and radar surveillance, cell phone triangulation, handwriting and voice analysis.
This breadth of experience coupled with his extensive knowledge of grand jury presentation and procedure, search and seizure, use of force, speedy trial, false confession and misidentification issues have made Mr. Schwartz a formidable defense attorney. He has been extremely successful in presenting justification defense claims, has counseled attorneys on disciplinary grievance ethics complaints and has defended litigants before the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Health. He has filed lawsuit and arbitrations against the New York City Police Department, Department of Education and Transit Authorities and has represented police, peace and homeland security officers in departmentally mandated interrogation, investigation and trials. He has tried partnership dissolution and accounting matters, defended cable television and luxury wristwatch patent infringement cases and has counseled employees interested in filing grievances with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Mr. Schwartz is also certified in the more recently developing areas of death penalty prosecution, the consequences of criminal convictions on immigration status and sex offender civil commitment under Article 10 of the Mental Hygiene Law. He has tried civil rights, family court, landlord tenant and portions of matrimonial cases and has also litigated parole and probation violations at the Rikers Island Correctional Facility. He recently won a defense verdict in a construction accident case overcoming the liability standards of both absolute and vicarious liability.
Mr. Schwartz has been on the faculty of the Yeshiva University Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law’s two week Intensive Trial Advocacy Program for almost fifteen years and coached the Cardozo Law School’s trial team during the semi-final rounds of the annual American College of Trial Lawyers National Trial Competition. He lectures and demonstrates at continuing legal education and bar association training programs on different aspects of trial advocacy, representing high profile clients vilified in the media, and the ethical issues that arise in the zealous representation of criminal cases. He authored a District Attorney Offices’ training memo on the taking of videotaped confessions and has demonstrated opening and closing statements during prosecutor training programs.
Mr. Schwartz has earned an impressive success rate after verdict and a significant reversal rate on appeal in cases he has tried. He has been honored, recognized and awarded certificates of outstanding dedication and service by the New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, City Council of New York , District Attorney’s Office of Queen’s County, and both the Detective Endowment and Patrolman’s Benevolent Associations of the New York City Police Department.
Mr. Schwartz appears frequently in the media as a legal analyst and consultant. He has been lead trial counsel in highly publicized death penalty, murder and other criminal prosecutions and has been profiled in local and national publications, including the New York Times.
He is a graduate of the Yeshiva of Flatbush Elementary and High Schools in Brooklyn, New York and studied Bible, Talmud and Judaic Studies for one year in Jerusalem prior to his undergraduate studies. He devotes a minimum of twenty five percent of his time to pro bono clients and charity fund-raising.
