Benjamin Brafman

Benjamin Brafman leads Brafman & Associates, P.C., as its principal attorney in Manhattan, New York. Criminal law is the firm’s focus, particularly white-collar defense. Its office is at 256 Fifth Avenue, on the second floor, and the firm describes a history of more than forty years defending individuals against federal and state criminal charges.

Brafman moved into private practice in 1980. He had previously worked in the Rackets Bureau of the New York County District Attorney’s Office as an assistant district attorney. His law degree came from Ohio Northern University in 1974; he graduated with distinction and was the law review’s manuscript editor. Further study at New York University Law School led to an LL.M. in criminal justice. In May 2014, Ohio Northern University Law School awarded him an honorary doctorate.

A Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, Brafman has also lectured on trial advocacy around the United States. The New York State Bar Association gave him its Outstanding Private Criminal Defense Practitioner Award for 2005. Two other defense-lawyer organizations honored him in the following years: the New York Council of Defense Lawyers gave him the Norman Ostrow Award in March 2006 for white-collar criminal defense, and the New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers presented him with its first Clarence Darrow Award for Distinguished Practitioner in January 2007.