Michael K. Bachrach is the principal of the Law Office of Michael K. Bachrach, having begun his career as an associate at the Law Offices of Richard Ware Levitt. Mr. Bachrach’s primary focus is criminal defense. Mr. Bachrach practices in both Federal and State courts at all stages of trial and appeal.
Mr. Bachrach was born in Philadelphia and raised in New York. He received his B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College and his J.D. from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, having also spent his final year of undergraduate school studying international law at Oxford University. Mr. Bachrach is admitted to practice in New York State, Minnesota and Washington D.C., as well as before the United States District Courts for the Southern District of New York, Eastern District of New York, District of Vermont, District of Colorado, Second Circuit Court of Appeals, Third Circuit Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the United States Supreme Court. Mr. Bachrach has also appeared pro hoc vice in the District of New Jersey.
Mr. Bachrach’s notable cases include: winning 284 counts of acquittal for Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, the first and thus far only Guantanamo Bay detainee to be transferred to civilian custody for trial; winning an acquittal on all counts for NY State Assemblyman William Boyland Jr., who had been accused of political corruption and bribery; winning a life verdict for Ronald Mallay, one of two defendants who had been facing the death penalty for their alleged responsibility for the deaths of four people in New York and Guyana; winning an Atkins hearing striking the death penalty for a defendant accused on seven gang-related murders; and numerous appeals including for Vincent Basciano, the former boss of the Bonnano crime family, Mostafa Kamel Mostafa (aka Abu Hamza), the highest profile defendant ever extradited from England to the United States, and for a U.S. person challenging the lawfulness of Section 702 NSA surveillance.
Mr. Bachrach is a past-President and a current Member of the Board of Directors of the New York Criminal Bar Association (NYCBA). Mr. Bachrach is a former Co-Chair of the New York County Lawyers’ Association (NYCLA) Committee on Foreign and International Law, a former Chair of NYCLA’s United Nations Sub-Committee, and is a member of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers’ (NACDL). Mr. Bachrach is also a Fellow in the American Bar Counsel.
Mr. Bachrach has lectured, taught workshops and continuing legal education classes, and chaired conferences on the subjects of Criminal Law, Ethics, Public International Law, Human Rights and International Criminal Law, both here in New York, across the United States, and abroad. Mr. Bachrach has represented the New York County Lawyers Association at the United Nations, having also represented Redress Trust during the United Nations Preparatory Committee meetings that negotiated and eventually established the permanent International Criminal Court.
From 2000-2004, Mr. Bachrach was the editor of the Second Circuit Criminal Law Update, an annually updated criminal law outline. In 2008 Mr. Bachrach joined the faculty of the Bryan R. Shechmeister Death Penalty College at the Santa Clara University School of Law in Santa Clara, California, where for three years he tought other experienced attorneys how to defend a capital trial.
In 2012, the New York State Bar Association (NYSBA) awarded Mr. Bachrach with the highly prestigious Davis S. Michaels Memorial Award for Courageous Efforts in Promoting Integrity in the Criminal Justice System. And in 2014, Mr. Bachrach published his first book, Understanding International Criminal Law.
