Nick Brustin
Nick Brustin, a partner in the firm, has broad experience in federal and state trial and appellate courts in New York and throughout the country. Mr. Brustin’s civil rights practice principally involves representing individual plaintiffs nationwide who have been the victims of police brutality or other official misconduct, and individuals who have been wrongfully convicted and incarcerated. Mr. Brustin also represents victims of employment and other forms of discrimination as well as those injured through corporate malfeasance.
Mr. Brustin has obtained some of the largest verdicts and settlements ever awarded in police misconduct cases, as well as substantial injunctive relief in police departments nationwide. For example, in 2010, Mr. Brustin obtained the largest individual settlement ever paid by New York City on behalf of Barry Gibbs, a Brooklyn postal worker who spent more than 19 years in prison for a murder he did not commit as a result of individual misconduct and systemic corruption in the New York City Police Department. In 2008, Mr. Brustin negotiated 2008′s largest settlement against the New York City Police Department on behalf of Hector Gonzalez, a man who spent more than 6 years in prison for a crime he did not commit as a result of misconduct by NYPD officers and detectives. In 2006, Mr. Brustin successfully litigated and then obtained a multi-million dollar jury verdict in federal court in Indiana on behalf of Larry Mayes, an African-American man who spent more than 18 years in prison for a crime he did not commit as a result of individual and systemic police misconduct in the Hammond Police Department.
Mr. Brustin currently is representing victims of police misconduct and those who have been wrongfully convicted in New York, Louisiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, New Jersey, Florida, North Carolina, Washington, Michigan and Washington, D.C. Mr. Brustin also was an adjunct professor of law at Fordham University School of Law and has lectured on civil rights issues, including at the annual NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund Civil Rights Conference and various civil rights continuing education seminars around the country. In 2011, Mr. Brustin was selected as a Wasserstein Public Interest Fellow at Harvard Law School.
Before joining the Firm, Mr. Brustin was an Honors Program Trial Attorney with the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice, where he worked on school desegregation cases including the DOJ’s successful efforts to integrate The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina. Mr. Brustin also was associated with Beldock, Levine & Hoffman where he focused on civil rights and employment discrimination litigation including the firm’s class action race discrimination lawsuit against the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.
Mr. Brustin received his law degree from Fordham University School of Law, a Masters Degree in Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and his undergraduate degree from Brown University.
Mr. Brustin can be reached at nick@nsbcivilrights.com.