Daniel Arshack

Daniel N. Arshack focuses on the criminal defense and civil rights of individuals and businesses in state and federal courts in the United States and in various jurisdictions throughout the world. He graduated from Brandeis University and the University of Stockholm in 1978 and started his career as a systems analyst at Abt Associates, a social science think-tank in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He obtained his law degree from the Antioch School of Law in 1983 and thereafter practiced criminal and civil rights law in Washington, D.C. before moving to New York and becoming a public defender in Manhattan. He has a professional certificate in Medical Bio-Ethics from Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons and Einstein Medical School. 

Mr. Arshack has successfully defended a wide range of cases, from securities fraud and international arms-dealing to homicide and professional malpractice. Mr. Arshack has represented thousands of clients in forty years of practice both as a Public Defender and in private practice. He has successfully fought for his clients in every level of court throughout New York, in other states, in the Supreme Court and in courts throughout the world. Mr. Arshack was US counsel in a case at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia at the Hague and appeared on behalf of a client, as Learned Counsel, in Kenya.  He is regularly called upon to represent a variety of foreign diplomats and foreign missions in courts in the United States. 

In 1991, Mr. Arshack was instrumental in starting the Manhattan School for Children, an award-winning public school in New York which both of his children attended. In 1996, Mr. Arshack, under contract to the City of New York, co-founded a new public defender’s office in The Bronx known as The Bronx Defenders and thereafter supervised 25 lawyers and the necessary support staff to handle 13,000 cases/year. Mr. Arshack teaches trial advocacy skills regularly and throughout the world.  Since 2015, Mr. Arshack has been consulting counsel to the National Advocates for Pregnant Women and in that capacity has provided direct defense services to women across the United States charged with crimes associated with being pregnant. For many years he has taught trial advocacy at Benjamin Cardozo School of Law.

Mr. Arshack served as President of the New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. He has served on the Board of Directors of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) and was Co-Chairman of its International Committee. He was the elected representative to the Council of the International Criminal Bar and was a member of the Board of Directors of the International Criminal Defense Attorneys Association – USA. He was a founding member, served on the board and remains general counsel to the board of New York Sun Works which provides solar power powered greenhouses and teacher training to schools throughout the New York metropolitan area. Mr. Arshack also helped found and is Vice- President of the Center for Restorative Justice, an organization which provides restorative justice training and interventions.   He was also a founding member of the board of the Wheelhouse School in Catskill and is a board member of the Catskill Community Center.  Since 2016, Mr. Arshack has been President of the Center for Community Alternatives which is New York’s only statewide organization focusing on alternatives to incarceration for legal system involved adults and children, reintegrative services and award-winning housing for formerly incarcerated people and state and national grassroots organizing and advocacy on criminal justice issues such as Clean Slate legislation, bail reform, ban the box and mandatory minimums.