David Stern has devoted his career to criminal defense. He has tried over one hundred criminal cases in state and federal court, including three federal capital murder cases to verdict.

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David attended Indiana University and received his law degree from New York University School of Law in 1982.  In that same year, David joined the Legal Aid Society’s Manhattan Criminal Defense Office where he progressed from Staff Attorney to supervisor, and then to one of the managers of the Senior Trial Attorney Bureau. As a member and supervisor of the Senior Trial Attorney Bureau, it was David’s job to try or to supervise trials of the most serious and challenging cases presented to the Legal Aid office.

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In 1993, after eleven years as an attorney and manager at Legal Aid, David resigned to found a partnership with Franklin Rothman, Jeremy Schneider, and Robert Soloway. Since then, his practice has focused primarily on the defense of the most serious federal criminal cases, including capital murder, terrorism, and racketeering cases. He often serves as “learned counsel” in serious federal felony cases in which the accused faces the possibility of execution.  David has represented client’s facing the possibility of capital punishment in more than twenty-­five federal capital cases. 

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David is admitted to practice in the federal courts of the Southern, Eastern, and Northern Districts of New York and before the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He instructs annually on trial practice and technique at Harvard Law School’s trial advocacy workshop, and at the Intensive Trial Advocacy Program of the Cardozo School of Law in New York City.