Washington, DC (July 14, 2025) – Five individuals were elected to serve on the Board of Directors of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) at the Association’s annual meeting on July 12. The Board Members below join those currently serving their terms on the NACDL Board of Directors.
Jonathan Brayman – Chicago, IL
Jonathan M. Brayman is a Partner at Breen & Pugh in Chicago. His practice focuses on criminal defense, Section 1983 civil rights actions, class actions, and asset forfeiture defense. Brayman is a Life Member of NACDL and previously served on NACDL’s Board of Directors from 2018-2024. He is a Past President of the Illinois Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys (IACDL). Brayman currently serves as an Amicus Vice-Chair for the Seventh Circuit and as a Co-Chair of NACDL’s Task Force on Police Accountability and Transparency. He has helped to file numerous amicus briefs for NACDL and IACDL on Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendment issues, as well as in support of the elimination of monetary bail in the State of Illinois. Brayman received his J.D. from the University of Iowa College of Law and his B.A. from the University of Colorado.
Steven Epstein – East Meadow, NY (Affiliate Representative)
Steven Epstein is a founding partner at Barket Epstein Kearon Aldea & LoTurco, LLP and head of the firm’s DWI and Vehicular Crimes group. Epstein has more than 33 years of experience in the field of DWI and criminal defense and is widely recognized as one of the foremost DWI attorneys in the country, specializing in representing clients accused of DWI, vehicular homicide, and other criminal offenses. He is often called upon to assist local counsel handling vehicular homicide cases based on his expertise in forensic and scientific issues such as blood and breath test evidence. Governor Hochul appointed him to the New York State Commission on Forensic Science. His role is critical in developing standards and accreditation programs for forensic laboratories across New York State. Epstein successfully challenged New York’s discovery statute and obtained and enforced an order directing the State to turn over to every defendant in New York State the full records of gas chromatography that relate to the certification of the simulator solution used for every person charged with a DWI who submitted to a breath test, resulting in a change to New York’s legislation. The new discovery statute now entitles every defendant to the full records of gas chromatography that relate to the certification of the simulator solution, a statute he helped author. He is the Immediate Past President of the New York State Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys and serves as an adjunct professor of law at Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University.
Katherine “Kacey” McBroom – Beverly Hills, CA
Kacey McBroom is a founding partner of California law firm Kaedian LLP. She focuses her practice on federal and state criminal defense and defending individuals in civil actions arising from alleged criminal conduct. She represents defendants throughout California in a wide variety of federal and state cases. She is also a member of the Central District of California trial attorney panel (CJA) and the Independent Defense Counsel Office private bar panel for Los Angeles County. Ms. McBroom began her legal career as a law clerk to noted criminal defense attorney Gigi Gordon at the Post Conviction Assistance Center in Los Angeles. Ms. Gordon was known nationwide for her work fighting disgraced law enforcement officers and challenging the testimony of jailhouse informants and preserving DNA evidence to exonerate those wrongfully convicted. In her capacity as Ms. Gordon’s law clerk, Ms. McBroom conducted investigations into the criminal convictions achieved in part by the perjured testimony of disgraced Los Angeles Police Department officers from the Rampart Division. Later, Ms. McBroom worked as an associate for The Law Offices of Randolph & Associates defending clients in both federal and state court and then as a Deputy Public Defender for the San Bernardino County Public Defender’s Office.
Joel Schwartz – Washington, DC
Joel Schwartz is a partner at Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein LLP, where he advises clients on white collar criminal defense, civil enforcement, and congressional and special investigations across a range of areas, including healthcare, consumer safety, corruption, government contracting, export control, financial services, and corporate fraud. He has also conducted internal investigations and compliance reviews for corporate clients. Joel began his career in south Texas as a Skadden Fellow doing civil rights work for farmworkers on the border, and then at the Texas Resource Center representing death row inmates in their habeas corpus proceedings. He then was an Assistant Public Defender at the Defender Association of Philadelphia and after moving to DC, was a prosector at the Department of Justice, later gaining experience as an assistant director in the Division of Enforcement & Investigations with the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB).
Ian Wallach – Los Angeles, CA
Ian Wallach practices nationally but predominantly in Los Angeles, (he is licensed in California, Colorado, and New York). About 90% of his practice is state and federal criminal defense, and the remainder is usually devoted to criminal defense related civil rights actions. He is a Life Member of NACDL and is returning to what will be his third three-year term on the Board. He co-chairs NACDL’s Task Force for Police Accountability, serves on NACDL’s Membership Committee, and co-chairs NACDL’s annual “Defending Modern Drug Crimes” seminar. He is a frequent presenter at CLE events, focusing on how to use inherent police bias against defendants to the client’s advantage. He spent five years in general commercial litigation before realizing that representing the disenfranchised was his calling. He joined the Los Angeles County Office of the Public Defender in 2005. In 2010, he returned to private practice to work in federal and state court on criminal defense and civil rights matters, and has had success in the civil rights arena, settling the cases of In Re Dontre Hamilton v. Milwaukee Case and Barry Montgomery v. LASD (both with Jovan Blacknell of California), and Raul Martinez v. LASD, as co-counsel with Neufeld, Scheck, Brustin. Hoffmann &, Freudenberger, LLP. Ian successfully argued the case of Edison v. United States, 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. In December of 2023, along with NACDL Board Member Katherine Kacey McBroom, he secured full acquittals in People v. Pedro Martinez, an eleven-count life case where a completely innocent high school janitor was charged with multiple counts of child sexual assault and alleged to have committed hundreds of such acts.
Contacts
Jonathan Hutson, NACDL Senior Director of Public Affairs and Communications, 202-480-5343 or jhutson@nacdl.org
The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers is the preeminent organization advancing the mission of the criminal defense bar to ensure justice and due process for persons accused of crime or wrongdoing. A professional bar association founded in 1958, NACDL's many thousands of direct members in 28 countries – and 90 state, provincial and local affiliate organizations totaling up to 40,000 attorneys – include private criminal defense lawyers, public defenders, military defense counsel, law professors and judges committed to preserving fairness and promoting a rational and humane criminal legal system.
