New York Lawyers

A University of Michigan Law School graduate, James R. Marsh represents victims of sex abuse in schools, colleges, churches, and government and military institutions; campus sexual assault and rape, online sexual exploitation; child pornography; sextortion, and revenge porn.

His case on compensation for victims of child pornography in federal criminal restitution proceedings was recently decided by the United States Supreme Court. That case, United States v. Paroline, led to the Amy and Vicky Child Pornography Victim Restitution Improvement Act which was recently passed by the Senate 98-0 and is pending in the House.

James founded the nationally recognized Children’s Law Center in Washington, DC, and is an experienced trial attorney, and frequent commentator, lecturer, and author on legal issues affecting children and victims of sex abuse and exploitation. He now leads Marsh Law Firm in New York which is recognized worldwide for its work helping sexually abused victims obtain justice and rebuild their lives with dignity and respect.

Jennifer Freeman has been litigating cases in New York for over thirty years. She is well known as a resolver of disputes and has worked tirelessly at the forefront of groundbreaking legal developments to protect children from sex abuse, child pornography and victimization. She has obtained countless restitution awards for child sex abuse survivors, and secured reparations for victims of abuse by teachers, family members, Big Brothers, camp personnel, clerics and others. Jennifer has spearheaded numerous confidential mediations and fashioned mass dispute resolution procedures to protect privacy and dignity.  Recently, she worked on the landmark Supreme Court decision in US v. Paroline which established for the first time that all participants in the child pornography market were responsible to their victims in damages. She has worked with the National Women’s Law Center and assisted lobbying for statutory change for sex abuse victims in the Amy Vicky Act.

Jennifer graduated from Cornell University and the George Washington National Law Center where she was Editor-in-Chief of the George Washington Journal of Law & Economics.  After clerking for the  Honorable John R. Brown, Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, she began her legal practice at Shearman & Sterling, and later joined the Marsh Law Firm.  She has served as Special Master for New York Supreme Court Judge Beatrice Shainswit, a member of the New York Judicial Screening Committee, and a scrivener for the City Bar Association Committee for the Homeless.  She has spoken at conferences about sex abuse issues, most recently In Davos, Switzerland, serves on the Board of a Cuban arts organization that supports young Cuban artists, and has fundraised for children’s charities. She is a member of the New York and Texas bars.

Robert Y. Lewis has been litigating and trying cases around the country for thirty years, with an 85%-win record on cases going to verdict.   As a federal prosecutor in Los Angeles between 1990 and 1994, he worked tirelessly to ensure justice for crime victims and the public at large. More recently, as a partner of the Marsh Law Firm PLLC, he has devoted his practice to representing survivors of childhood sexual abuse. Robert believes strongly that for too long institutions, both private and governmental, have turned a blind eye to sexual abuse being perpetrated in their midst, and that it is high time to hold them to account for the crimes of their employees and agents. He is currently lead counsel in a major case brought in federal court in North Carolina on behalf of five young boys suing the United States Army for the repeated sexual molestation they suffered at the hands of a teacher at an Army school.

Robert is a graduate of Grinnell College, where he was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, and the Stanford Law School, where he served as a Notes Editor on the Stanford Law Review. After law school he clerked for the Honorable Harlington Wood Jr. on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago. In 1985 and 1986, Bob studied international criminal law in Germany as a Rotary Fellow. He has a perfect 10 rating with AVVO and has been designated as a Preeminent Lawyer with an AV rating by the Martindale-Hubbell law directory. Robert is admitted to practice in New York and California.

Seattle attorney Michael T. Pfau has practiced law for more than 25 years.  He has tried over 50 cases to juries, the bench, and arbitration panels.  Michael has obtained multiple verdicts in excess of $1 million, and he has recovered tens of millions of dollars in settlements for his clients.  In 2012, he obtained an $8 million jury verdict against a Catholic religious order, believed to be one of the largest of its kind.

Michael attended Boston College, graduated magna cum laude, and earned a number of other academic honors.  After Boston College, Michael attended Michigan law school and graduated in 1991.  He has been named a perpetual “Super Lawyer” by Law and Politics magazine, receiving that honorable distinction every year since 2003.  He is peer rated AV Preeminent.

Michael has dedicated a large part of his practice to representing victims of childhood sexual abuse against sexual predators and the institutions that employ and protect them.  Michael has had tremendous success prosecuting claims of child sexual abuse in a number of different states and jurisdictions.  In this endeavor, Michael has been lead counsel for hundreds of victims of sexual abuse and has recovered in excess of $200 million for his clients over the past 15 years in lawsuits against the Catholic church, the Mormon church, the Boy Scouts of America, and other institutions responsible for child sex abuse.

Michael has been involved in a number of the nation’s large Catholic bankruptcy settlements, including the Dioceses of Spokane and Milwaukee and those involving the Jesuit order and the Irish Christian Brothers.

Michael was also recently involved in a lawsuit on behalf of three minor girls sexually trafficked on the website Backpage.com, the largest online marketer of prostitutes in the United States.  His clients obtained a landmark victory in the Washington State Supreme Court over whether federal immunity barred the case.  Michael now represents clients who were human trafficking victims on Backpage in cases in Washington, California, Texas, Hawaii, Illinois, Alabama, and New York.