Dedication of CUNY Law’s New Trial Courtroom

Stephen Bergstein is a civil rights lawyer who graduated from CUNY School of Law in 1993. He maintains an active trial and appellate practice in New Paltz, New York, and has briefed and/or argued more than 175 civil rights appeals in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.  He has lectured on civil rights and employment matters for the Practicing Law Institute, the National Employment Lawyers Association (NELA – New York Chapter), the Orange County (NY) Bar Association, the Westchester County (NY) Bar Association, the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, the National Business Institute and Lawline.com. In 2022 NELA honored Mr. Bergstein as a “Courageous Lawyer”.

Many of Mr. Bergstein’s cases have become notable precedents, among them Zarda v. Altitude Express, 883 F.3d 100 (2d Cir. 2018) (en banc) (holding that sexual orientation discrimination is a form of gender discrimination in violation of Title VII), aff’d, Bostock v. Clayton County, 140 S. Ct. 1731 (2020); Rasmy v. Marriott International, 952 F.3d 379 (2d Cir. 2020) (reinstating hostile work environment and retaliation claims under Title VII); Chauca v. Abraham, 885 F.3d 122 (2d Cir. 2018) (holding that punitive damages test under New York City Human Rights Law is not coterminous with federal standard); Kelleher v. Fred A. Cook, Inc., 939 F.3d 465 (2d Cir. 2019) (reinstating claim under Americans with Disabilities Act alleging associational discrimination); Darnell v. Pineiro, 849 F.3d 17 (2d Cir. 2017) (vacating summary judgment in case alleging pretrial detainees were subjected to unconstitutional jail conditions); Legg v. County of Ulster, 820 F.3d 67 (2d Cir. 2016) (vacating judgment as a matter of law in pregnancy discrimination case); Zeno v. Pine Plains Cent. Sch. Dist., 702 F.3d 655 (2d Cir. 2012) (sustaining $1 million jury award and liability finding that school district was deliberately indifferent to racial bullying); Jackler v. Byrne, 658 F.3d 225 (2d Cir. 2011) (holding that police officer had a First Amendment right to refuse to file false police report).

Mr. Bergstein also maintains an active trial practice where he has had notable victories, including in a disability discrimination case against a health care facility in 2006, in which the jury determined to award punitive damages; in a sexual harassment trial in Orange County Supreme Court in 2009;  also in 2009in a disability discrimination case against the City of Newburgh, in which the jury awarded his client nearly $200,000; in a 2010 a racial bullying case in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, in which the jury awarded his client $1.25 million (reduced to $1 million by the trial judge).

Mr. Bergstein blogs on the Second Circuit’s civil rights decisions at www.secondcircuitcivilrights.blogspot.com

Frederick K. Brewington is a nationally renowned civil rights attorney in private practice on Long Island.  He earned his B.A. with honors from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Albany and received his Juris Doctor Degree from Northeastern University School of Law where he was the Student Commencement Speaker.

After working in private practice settings and a clerkship at the Office of the Legal Counsel of the United States Senate, Mr. Brewington has become a noted trial lawyer specializing in employment discrimination, police misconduct, personal injury, medical malpractice, wrongful death and criminal defense.  He now leads a team of attorneys and associates in a growing firm.  Among his major civil rights victories was a successful voting rights challenge to the ‘at large’ voting system in Nassau (Hempstead) and Suffolk (Islip) Counties in Goosby v. Town of Hempstead (956 F.Supp. 326, EDNY 1997).  He has continued to work on preventing future unconstitutional and discriminatory purging of voters from the voting rolls.

Among dozens of honors he has received, two of his embody his most cherished values: “Keeper of the Dream” and “Guardian of Liberty.” He is the recipient of the Long Island Business News’s Leadership in Law Lifetime Achievement Award, The New York State Bar Association, Committee on Civil Rights, the New York State Bar Association Civil Rights Committee’s Haywood Burns Memorial Award, The Hon. William Gitelman Award of the Nassau Lawyers’ Association of Long Island, Inc.  He is on the Long Island Press POWERLIST of the 50 Most Influential people on Long Island.

Mr.  Brewington is an Adjunct Professor at the Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center, Touro College, and served as President of the Alumni Association of SUNY, Albany. He serves as an advisor to many community groups and organizations for whom he provides pro bono services. He serves as a Certified Lay Servant for the Long Island East District of the New York Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church and is an instructor for Local Lay Servants. For almost 40 years, he has been a volunteer football coach in the Malverne School District, mentoring and guiding students to personal excellence.

Colleen M. Meenan is a proud 1991 graduate of the City University of New York School of Law and is founder of Meenan & Associates, LLC, a general law practice that has represented businesses and individuals for over 30 years. Before practicing law, Colleen was a decorated New York City police officer, and Executive Director and legal counsel for the Gay Officers’ Action League, Inc., a fraternal organization for LGBTQI individuals in law enforcement. Her law practice focuses on civil rights and public interest litigation, advancing the rights and interests of individuals in employment and other areas.

Ms. Meenan’s civil rights work includes the representation of 10 disabled inmates who depended upon wheelchairs for mobility within the New York State Department of Corrections (Shariff v. Philip Coombe, 96 Civ 3001 (SDNY)).  Surviving dismissal under the then newly enacted Prisoner Litigation Reform Act of 1996, the case focused attention on physical barriers to mobility within the Greenhaven Correctional Facility.

Ms. Meenan has successfully tried many cases to verdict and sustained those victories on appeal, including Albunio v. City of New York, 16 N.Y.3d 472 (2011) and Sandiford v. City of New York, 22 N.Y. 3d 914 (2013). These decisions clarified the interpretation to be applied by trial courts in analyzing claims of retaliation under the New York City Human Rights Law.   

Ms. Meenan testified before the New York City Council in December of 2015 in support of Int. 0814-2015, a proposed amendment to the City’s human rights law, requiring trial courts to correctly interpret the statute and recognize its broad and remedial purposes. The amendment was subsequently passed by the City Council, amending Administrative Code § 8-130.   

Ms. Meenan was instrumental in developing the successful legal strategy that challenged the New York City Police Department’s discriminatory treatment of hearing-disabled police officers.  James Phillips and Dan Carione v. City of New York, 11 Civ 6685 (SDNY) culminated in a settlement under which the New York City Police Department agreed to change the medical standard for hearing-impaired officers so that the use of a hearing aid did not disqualify an individual from police employment.

In August 2020, Ms. Meenan represented Police Chief Lori Pollock, one of the highest-ranking uniformed officials within the NYPD, in her gender-based discrimination case against the agency, Pollock v. Shea, et al., 20 Civ 6273 (SDNY), challenging the glass ceiling in law enforcement which prevents women from advancing to the most prestigious positions. The case garnered significant media attention, both locally and nationally, exposing discriminatory police policies.

Ms. Meenan is a past executive board member of the National Employment Lawyers Association’s New York Chapter (NELA/NY), the local affiliate of the national organization for lawyers who promote the workplace rights of employees.  She is the recipient of NELA-NY’s Janice Goodman Women Trailblazer Award.

James C. Francis IV served as a United States Magistrate Judge in the Southern District of New York from 1985 to 2017, serving as Chief Magistrate Judge from 1998 to 2000.  At the court, he authored numerous cutting-edge opinions in e-discovery, including decisions on cost-shifting, ephemeral data, spoliation sanctions, and proportionality. One of his cases, concerning a search warrant for electronic data held in a server outside the United States, was heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.

After leaving the bench, Judge Francis was a Distinguished Lecturer at the City University of New York School of Law from 2017 to 2019.  He was previously an Adjunct Professor at Fordham University School of Law.  He is currently an arbitrator, mediator and special master with JAMS.

Prior to his judicial service, he was an attorney at the Legal Aid Society’s Civil Appeals and Law Reform Unit.  Judge Francis began his legal career as a law clerk to the Hon. Robert L. Carter, a federal judge who had been the lead counsel in Brown v. Board of Education consolidated case No. 1.  (Judge Carter was also a holder of the Haywood Burns Chair in Civil Rights at CUNY School of Law.)

Judge Francis is the author of Good Intentions Gone Awry: Privacy as Proportionality Under Rule 26(b)(1), __ San Diego L. Rev. __ (2022), and co-author of Limits on Limiting Inherent Authority: Rule 37(e) and the Power to Sanction, 17 Sedona Conf. J. 613 (2016). He speaks frequently on electronic discovery and is a judicial emeritus member of the Steering Committee of Sedona Conference Working Group 6 on International Electronic Information Management, Discovery and Disclosure; the Advisory Committee of the Georgetown Advanced E-Discovery Institute; the Advisory Board of the Cardozo Data Law Initiative; and the Global Advisory Council of the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM).

Judge Francis received his B.A. from Yale College, his juris doctor degree from the Yale Law School, and a master’s degree in public policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.