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Muhammad U. Faridi is a Partner in the firm's Litigation department. In May 2024, he was elected as the 71st President of the New York City Bar Association, a 154-year-old organization comprising over 22,000 members that is considered one of the most preeminent bar associations in the country. Mr. Faridi is the youngest person and the first ever Muslim-American to serve in this role. He is a go-to litigator on complex commercial matters involving claims relating to breaches of contract and commercial torts. He has represented clients—as both plaintiffs and defendants—in several industries, including financial services, pharmaceuticals and medical devices, software, and manufacturing. In the last two years alone, he has tried five cases. His successes in these cases include securing a directed verdict on a statute-of-limitations defense; securing a $2 billion jury verdict (for which he was selected as The American Lawyer's 'Litigator of the Week'); securing a $1.84 billion settlement for his client mid-way through trial; and securing a defense verdict on the adversary's claims while prevailing on counterclaims asserted by his client.
Prior to being elected as the New York City Bar Association's President in May 2024, Mr. Faridi previously held other positions in the organization, including Vice President, Chair of the Executive Committee, Chair of its Committee on Capital Punishment, and Co-Chair of the Committee on the Recruitment and Retention of Lawyers, which focuses on enhancing diversity in the profession. In February 2023, Mr. Faridi was appointed by New York City Mayor Eric Adams as the independent civil representative to the New York City Police Department’s (NYPD) Handschu Committee. In that role, Mr. Faridi is charged with ensuring the NYPD’s compliance with the terms of a consent decree that regulates the NYPD’s policies and practices regarding investigations of political activity. Mr. Faridi previously served on the New York City Mayor's Advisory Committee on the Judiciary, entrusted to “ensure that only candidates with the highest qualifications and from diverse backgrounds are nominated for judicial appointments to criminal and family courts, as well as interim appointments to civil court.” In 2021, he was elected to the American Law Institute, the leading independent organization in the United States producing scholarly work to modernize and improve the law.
Mr. Faridi maintains an active pro bono practice, representing indigent clients across a wide variety of matters. He is currently representing several Iraqi nationals in a lawsuit alleging violations of the Alien Tort Statute against an American military contractor at the Abu Ghraib prison facility during the Iraq war. He is also representing the family of a young Black American who was shot and killed by the police in Rochester, New York. Additionally, he has represented Muslim communities in two separate lawsuits challenging the denial of permits to build mosques. In both cases, he was able to secure significant victories for his clients, which included securing the right to build the mosques and millions of dollars in monetary recompense and attorney’s fees. As a result of Mr. Faridi’s work in Trump v. Hawaii, where he represented a union of federal asylum and refugee officers challenging government restrictions on the rights of refugees, Benchmark Litigation recognized the firm as the 2021 “Pro Bono Firm of the Year.” In 2017, as a result of Mr. Faridi’s work on death penalty matters, the firm was awarded the Norman Redlich Capital Defense Pro Bono Award by the New York City Bar Association.
Mr. Faridi is the recipient of numerous other awards and honors. In March 2023, Mr. Faridi was named to City & State’s "2023 Law Power 100" List. Based on “peer and client recognition as [a] top trial attorney,” Benchmark Litigation has listed him as a “Litigation Star” for New York in its 2024 and 2023 Guides, a “Future Star” in its 2022 Guide, and in its “40 & Under” list for several years. He was named a “2018 Rising Star” by the New York Law Journal and was also awarded the New York State Bar Association’s 2014 Outstanding Young Lawyer Award. He is also the recipient of The Legal Aid Society’s Pro Bono Publico Award for multiple years, MFY Legal Services, Inc.’s Partner in Justice Award, and the Brooklyn Bar Association Volunteer Lawyers Project’s TD Bank Champion of Justice Award.
Mr. Faridi previously taught commercial litigation as an Adjunct Professor at Fordham University School of Law, and he has also written extensively on commercial litigation. He is the co-editor of Commercial Division Practice Guide (Bloomberg), a treatise that focuses on litigation in the Commercial Division of the New York State Supreme Court. The treatise has been described as “an indispensable resource for commercial litigators” and it can be found on the bookshelves of commercial division judges throughout the state. Mr. Faridi is also a contributor to the American Bar Association Section of Business Law's annual review of business courts. Further, he is a founding contributor to the firm’s blog, Commercial Disputes Digest, covering developments related to practice and case law in the Commercial Division. He has also made presentations before, among others, the New York State Judicial Institute.
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