The First Amendment lawsuit challenges New York judiciary law that has maintained confidentiality within the attorney grievance process.

Former New York City Corporation Counsel James Johnson had held that the law professors’ publicity campaign abused Judiciary Law § 90(10), a statute which has historically shielded prosecutorial misconduct complaints from public view.

The plaintiffs, including the nonprofit Civil Rights Corps, are represented on a pro bono basis by attorney Gregory Diskant of Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler.

Diskant called Marrero’s ruling “thoughtful and careful and clearly vindicated First Amendment rights that I frankly think most people would have assumed existed without the need for a judicial decision.”

Diskant explained that grievance complaints against lawyers can be filed both in civil court for money damages, or with the grievance committee.

“Why on earth should it make any difference where we file it? It’s our grievance. It’s something we’re entitled to make public,” he said.

In May 2021, the law professors and Civil Rights Corps filed 21 grievance complaints against current and former ADAs in Queens, alleging they committed prosecutorial misconduct.

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