Brett H. Klein

Brett H. Klein is the founder of his own law firm based in New York City. Focusing his practice exclusively on civil rights law, Mr. Klein brings two decades of focus, expertise and results to provide representation to individuals and their family members whose rights have been illegally violated by law enforcement officers or other officials. Mr. Klein has written and lectured extensively on cases related to this practice. As an example, in 2015 he appeared on CNN on two consecutive nights to give his views on the infamous incident in which Eric Garner died after a choke hold from a New York City Police Department officer.

An industry leader in wrongful conviction litigation, Mr. Klein this year secured the exoneration a man who had spent more than 25 years in prison, and is now pursuing justice for his client in a claim for compensation under New York's unjust conviction statute.  

During his career, Mr. Klein has been able to obtain hundreds of sizable settlements and jury awards on behalf of his clients. In late 2019, Mr. Klein obtained an $11,000,000 jury verdict for a 27-year-old motorist who suffered an injury to his cervical spine resulting in permanent neurological dysfunction and impairments when he was shot by a law enforcement officer during a traffic stop.  In February 2019, Mr. Klein obtained a $1.8 million jury verdict against Home Depot in Brooklyn Supreme Court.  In another recent case, he obtained a $1.5 million settlement from the City of New York for a man who was held in custody for five years on Rikers Island before he was eventually acquitted on all charges. In another, Mr. Klein reached a $1.85 million settlement with Suffolk County for the death of an autistic man who was asphyxiated by Suffolk County police officers.  Mr. Klein also recently settled a case on behalf of the estate of a man who was asphyxiated by NYPD officers on Staten Island for $1.5 million.  In yet other recent settlements, he was able to obtain a settlement of $1.5 million for a man wrongfully accused of shooting at NYPD officers resulting in 18 days of confinement, $1 million from the City of New York for a man who spent 2 days in jail after being wrongfully accused of a sex crime, and another in the amount of nearly $1 million for a client who was kicked in the face by a NYPD officer, resulting in the loss of an eye.

Mr. Klein has tried and won numerous jury trials, including favorable verdicts against the City of New York, New York State, the United States, and other municipalities, including Yonkers, Suffolk County, the Port Authority, and the MTA.  Recent examples include a federal jury verdict in the amount of $250,000 for a man who was beaten by inmates in the Suffolk County Jail due to the misconduct of correction officers, as well as a $150,000 verdict against New York City for a Brooklyn man who was falsely arrested for 30 minutes and then issued a summons in front of his young son by a NYPD officer in a road rage incident. Majoring in political science, Mr. Klein attended the State University of New York at Binghamton as an undergraduate and received a Bachelor of Arts in 1994. He then went on to pursue his legal education at Brooklyn Law School and was awarded his Juris Doctor in 1997. Admitted to practice in both New York and New Jersey, Mr. Klein is also admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, the U.S. District Courts for the Eastern, Southern Northern and Western Districts of New York, as well as in the District of New Jersey.