Charlie Gerstein

Partner

Charlie Gerstein in jacket

Charlie is an innovative and experienced civil-rights lawyer who handles complex individual cases and class actions across the country.

Charlie has handled cases from investigation, through discovery, trial, and appeal, winning precedent-setting rulings on bail and the first amendment rights of public defenders, and recovering significant damages for his clients. He is also an adjunct law professor at Georgetown Law Center, where he teaches a seminar on the first-amendment rights of defense lawyers.

Before forming Gerstein Harrow, Charlie was an attorney at Civil Rights Corps, where he founded the organization’s public-defense initiative and was lead counsel on all of the initiative’s cases. Charlie’s public defense cases have been covered extensively in the press, including in the New York Times and Texas Monthly, and he brings that work with him to Gerstein Harrow’s independent-defense project.  

Charlie graduated summa cum laude from the University of Michigan Law School in 2014, finishing second in his class. After law school, Charlie clerked for the Honorable J. Paul Oetken of the Southern District of New York and the Honorable Pierre N. Leval of the Second Circuit. Before law school, Charlie was a public-defense investigator. Before that, he was a chef. And before that, he worked in landscaping and played guitar in a band.

Representative Prior Matters Include

  • Willey v. Ewing, 18-CV-0081, 2018 WL 7115180 (S.D. Tex. Dec. 17, 2018): First Amendment case by defence attorney alleging that local judge removed attorney from appointed-counsel list in retaliation for in-court speech. Successfully survived the motion to dismiss, conducted paper discovery and several depositions, and settled the case.

  • Hudson v. Montgomery County, 20-CV-1487 (E.D. Penn.): First Amendment case by deputy chief public defender alleging that she was fired in retaliation for filing an amicus brief challenging the money-bail system. Motion to dismiss denied. The case settled for $120,000. 

  • Valdez-Jimenez v. Eighth Judicial District Court, 460 P.3d 976 (Nev. 2020); Valdez-Jimenez v. Lombardo, 19-CV-581 (D. Nev.): related state and federal cases challenging the constitutionality of Las Vegas’s money-bail system. Federal case voluntarily dismissed as moot after briefing and argument. Landmark opinion issued by Nevada Supreme Court invalidating bail practices statewide.

  • E.g., Rasmussen v. Garrett, 20-CV-0865 (D. Or.); State v. Rasmussen, No. 20-67624 (Or.): more than a dozen related state and federal challenges to unconstitutional pretrial detention in Oregon. A Mandamus petition was granted resulting in a statewide ruling.

  • Hernandez v. City of Houston, 16-CV-3577 (S.D. Tex.): the class-action challenge to the City of Houston's practice of jailing arrestees for more than 48 hours without a judicial determination of the probable cause. Survived motion to dismiss and successfully certified a class, won discovery sanctions against City for deliberate discovery misconduct, and settled case for $1.175 million. 

Publications Include

  • Dependent Counsel, 16 Stan. J. C.R.-C.L. 147 (2020)  

  • Plea Bargaining and Prosecutorial Motives, 15 U.N.H. L. Rev. 1 (2016) 

  • Process Costs and Police Discretion, 128 Harv. L. Rev. F. 268 (2015), with J.J. Prescott 

  • Note, Plea Bargaining and the Right to Counsel at Bail Hearings, 111 Mich. L. Rev. 1513 (2013) 

  • The Prisoner’s Lawyer’s Dilemma, Criminal Justice, Spring 2017, at 33, available at goo.gl/aT5vA1