Steve Zeidman

​Steve Zeidman, Professor, Founder and Co-Director of the Second Look Project: Beyond Guilt (secondlookprojectny.org) and the Defenders Clinic, has spent his entire career in the area of criminal defense. A graduate of Duke University School of Law, he is a highly-respected trial lawyer and former supervisor at the Legal Aid Society in Manhattan. He began his teaching career with substantive and clinical courses and has taught at Fordham, Pace, and New York University. Professor Zeidman was awarded the NYU Alumni Association’s Great Teacher Award and CUNY’s Outstanding Professor of the Year honor. Prior to joining the CUNY faculty, he was Executive Director of the Fund for Modern Courts, a nonpartisan, statewide court reform organization.

Professor Zeidman is a member of the Appellate Division’s Indigent Defense Organization Oversight Committee and serves on the Board of Directors of Prisoners’ Legal Services and the Parole Preparation Project. He was appointed by District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin to an Advisory Council created to help implement her remedial order in the Floyd v. City of New York stop-and-frisk litigation. He also serves on the American Bar Association’s Criminal Justice Section Council, and was a member of several statewide commissions, including the Commission on the Future of Indigent Defense Services and the Jury Project. Professor Zeidman was a member of the Mayor’s Advisory Committee for the Judiciary in the Bloomberg and Giuliani administrations. He has made numerous presentations on a range of issues, including judicial selection, hearsay, and the ethical dimensions of the effective assistance of counsel. His published work has been cited in numerous law reviews and journals, as well as by the New York Court of Appeals.