Ian M. Wallach

Board of Directors, Director, First Term, Class of 2028

Ian M. Wallach Photo

Ian Wallach practices nationally but predominantly in Los Angeles (he is licensed before the states of California, Colorado, and New York). About 90% of his practice is state and federal criminal defense, and the remainder is devoted to (usually two) criminal defense related civil rights actions. Ian is a member of the CJA panel for the Central District of California and also devotes substantial time providing pro bono representation. 

 

Ian is a life member of NACDL and presently serving his third three-year term on the Board of Directors. He is a co-chair for the NACDL Task Force for Police Accountability and also serves on NACDL’s membership committee, and co-chairs NACDL’s annual “Defending Modern Drug Crimes” seminar in Las Vegas. Ian is also a frequent presenter at CLE events, focusing on how to use inherent police officer bias against defendants to that client’s advantage. 

 

In the late 1990s, Ian served as a law clerk in the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia where he participated in drafting the indictment of Slobodan Milosevic. He subsequently represented Guantanamo Bay detainees in connection with the Center for Constitutional Rights challenging their unlawful detention. He then spent 5 years in general commercial litigation, predominantly with the firm of Luce, Forward, Hamilton, and Scripps, LLP (now Venable, LLP). Realizing that trial practice and representing the disenfranchised was his calling, he left the corporate world in 2005 to join the Los Angeles County Office of the Public Defender. In 2010 he returned to private practice to be able to work in both federal and state court and on criminal defense and civil rights matters. 

 

In December of 2023, along with NACDL Board Member Katherine (“Kacey”) McBroom, following a three and a ½ month pro bono trial in Joshua Tree California, Ian and Kacey secured full acquittals in People v. Pedro Martinez, an eleven-count life case with allegations reminiscent of McMartin and Stoll, where a completely innocent and randomly targeted high school janitor was charged with multiple counts of child sexual assault and alleged to have committed hundreds of such acts. The acquittal received international media attention. Ian and Kacey are now bringing the federal civil rights action on behalf of Mr. Martinez against the prosecutor and officers who fabricated the evidence that resulted in Mr. Martinez’ almost five years of extended pre-trial detention. At present, the court has determined that – for the time being – the absolute immunity protections usually afforded to all prosecutors may not be applicable and the case against the prosecutor and the police officers goes forward. 

 

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Ian has had substantial success in the civil rights arena, settling the cases of In Re Dontre Hamilton v. Milwaukee Case (in Milwaukee, Wisconsin) and Barry Montgomery v. LASD (In Los Angleles, Calfornia) (both with Jovan Blacknell of California) and Raul Martinez v. LASD (in Los Angeles, CA) (as co-counsel with Neufeld, Scheck, Brustin. Hoffmann &, Freudenberger, LLP), all for record-setting recoveries. 

 

Ian successfully argued the case of Edison v. United States, 822 F.3d 510 (9th Cir. 2016), securing the rights of inmates to sue the United States for harms arising in custodial settings at facilities contracted out to third parties, and was the first lawyer to obtain a substantial settlement for claims arising out of Valley Fever infections in Eastern California, where the Government knew of the danger such housing posed to individuals of certain ethnic groups but disregarded those dangers.  

 

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 Ian is ever-thankful to NACDL and its efforts to ensure the values and goes enshrined in its mission statement.

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