When you are looking for a criminal defense attorney, are you asking yourself this question: What is more important to me and my family than my freedom and reputation?

Michael Dowd has been a trial lawyer for more than 30 years.  During that time, he has gone to trial in many types of criminal cases, in both state and federal courts.  He has handled more than 250 cases before a jury.  Michael Dowd has worked on every kind of criminal case, including securities fraud, bank fraud, homicide, assault, arson, robbery and DUI.  During that time, his practice has evolved.  In 1979, he defended a battered woman who had killed her abusive husband, using the little-known battered woman’s defense.  Since then, Michael Dowd has represented more than 25 women charged with killing their abusers.  He has been drawn to those cases because of his passion to right the injustices done to these battered women.

In 1987, he was the first attorney in New York to win a criminal case involving post-partum depression.  He believes that we live in a society that must be able to distinguish between illness and evil.  As the noted New York writer and author Jimmy Breslin, wrote, “He is perhaps the first around here to successfully use the battered women defense, and certainly is alone in this state and most of the nation for using postpartum psychosis to win the main event of law, a murder case”.

Most people want to hire an experienced criminal defense lawyer who has the proven ability to think creatively.  As a criminal defense lawyer, Michael Dowd has done that again and again.

In 1995, he took on his first case involving a child who had been abused in a grammar school by a teacher.  Since that time, he has represented over 150 people who were sexually abused as children by priests, rabbis, teachers, Boy Scout leaders and other people in positions of authority.  To Michael Dowd, clergy abuse of children is the worst kind of betrayal.  In 2007, he won a verdict of over 11 million dollars against the Diocese of Rockville Center in a sexual abuse case.  All these battles continue today.  His practice has always been about representing the victims of injustice, whether they have been wrongly accused of a crime or have suffered the injustice of child abuse.  Michael Dowd has also represented many people in civil cases who have been the victims of injustice.

Mr. Dowd and the other attorneys in his office are always looking for challenging cases.  Take a look at this website, at the experience of this team of attorneys, the newspaper articles and videos involving cases and issues with which they have been involved.  Make up your own mind about whether Michael Dowd and the attorneys in his office are the right ones for you and/or your loved one’s situation.  Please feel free to contact Mr. Dowd or his office by e-mail or phone.  Michael Dowd is also the recipient of the highest rating from the Martindale-Hubbell legal directory.