Focusing his practice exclusively on civil rights law, Brett Klein brings a quarter century of focus, expertise and results to provide skilled representation to individuals and their family members whose rights have been illegally violated by law enforcement officers or other government officials. Mr. Klein has represented countless victims of government abuse and corruption, including wrongful death and unjust convictions, and victims of prison rape, excessive force and unlawful strip searches. He has extensive experience representing clients who have suffered traumatic brain injuries, orbital fractures, broken jaws, emotional distress and other needless injuries at the hands of police and corrections officers.

An industry leader in wrongful conviction litigation, Mr. Klein recently secured the exoneration a man who had spent more than 25 years in prison, and is now pursuing justice for his client in a claim for compensation under New York's unjust conviction statute.

During his career, Mr. Klein has been able to obtain hundreds of significant and/or landmark settlements and jury awards on behalf of his clients. In 2021, Mr. Klein negotiated a record setting $13,250,000 settlement for a victim of a police shooting, following a landmark $11,000,000 jury verdict, which was one of the largest civil rights verdicts in the US in 2019. In February 2019, Mr. Klein obtained a $1.8 million jury verdict against Home Depot in Brooklyn Supreme Court for a client who was wrongfully arrested. In another recent case, Mr. Klein obtained a $1.5 million settlement from the City of New York for a man who was held in custody for five years on Rikers Island before he was eventually acquitted on all charges. In another, Mr. Klein reached a $1.85 million settlement with Suffolk County for the death of an autistic man who was asphyxiated by Suffolk County police officers. Mr. Klein also recently settled a case on behalf of the estate of a man who was asphyxiated by NYPD officers on Staten Island for $1.5 million. In yet other recent settlements, he was able to obtain a settlement of $1.5 million for a man wrongfully accused of shooting at NYPD officers resulting in 18 days of confinement, $1 million from the City of New York for a man who spent 2 days in jail after being wrongfully accused of a sex crime, and another in the amount of nearly $1 million for a client who was kicked in the face by a NYPD officer, resulting in the loss of an eye.

Mr. Klein has tried and won numerous jury trials, including favorable verdicts against the City of New York, the State of New York, the United States, and other municipalities, including Yonkers, Suffolk County, the Port Authority, and the MTA. Recent examples include a federal jury verdict in the amount of $250,000 for a man who was beaten by inmates in the Suffolk County Jail due to the misconduct of correction officers, as well as a $150,000 verdict against New York City for a Brooklyn man who was falsely arrested for 30 minutes and then issued a summons in front of his young son by a NYPD officer in a road rage incident.

Mr. Klein is a member of the Eastern District of New York’s Litigation Committee. He is also a member of the Federal Bar Association, and the Federal Bar Council, where he sits on the Civil Rights and Central Islip Committees, as well as the Pro Bono Advisory Panel. Mr. Klein is also a member of the National Police Accountability Project.

Mr. Klein has been repeatedly selected by Super Lawyers as a top rated civil rights attorney in New York, and is frequently named to other top attorney lists, including the Top 100 Registry where he was selected 2022 New York Civil Rights Attorney of the Year, Best of the Bar, America’s Top 100 High Stakes Litigators, TopVerdict (including a spot in the Top 20 Civil Rights Violation Verdicts in the United States in 2019), the National Trial Lawyers’ Top 100 Civil Plaintiff Trial Lawyers in New York, and others.

Mr. Klein is also a Life Member of the Million Dollar Advocates Forum and the Multi-Million Dollar Advocates Forum.

Mr. Klein attended Binghamton University as an undergraduate and received a Bachelor of Arts in 1994. He then went on to pursue his legal education at Brooklyn Law School and was awarded his Juris Doctor in 1997. Admitted to practice in both New York and New Jersey, Mr. Klein is also admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, the U.S. District Courts for the Eastern, Southern Northern and Western Districts of New York, as well as in the District of New Jersey.