Aaron Scherzer
Aaron is an experienced civil-rights litigator whose practice focuses on wrongful conviction cases. Aaron has worked in nonprofits, government, and private practice and has clerked at all three levels of the federal judiciary.
Aaron first worked on wrongful conviction cases as a Cochran Fellow at NSBHF. Among other matters, Aaron helped obtain a $20.5 million settlement for the families of three Black men wrongly convicted of murder, the largest wrongful conviction settlement in Mississippi.
Prior to rejoining NSBHF, Aaron was the Litigation Director of the Policing Project at NYU Law School, where he oversaw the organization’s litigation seeking accountability from police departments nationwide. Previously, he was Senior Counsel at the States United Democracy Center, where he established and led a new initiative focused on accountability for democracy violations. Aaron also previously served as Chief of Strategic Initiatives and Enforcement at the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights in the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office. Earlier in his career, he practiced in the Supreme Court and Appellate Practice at Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe in New York. Prior to law school, Aaron worked at the Bronx Defenders.
Education:
- Yale Law School, J.D., 2010
- Brown University, B.A., Public Policy & American Institutions, 2005
Publication:
- Aaron Scherzer, The Abolition of th Death Penalty in New Jersey and Its Ipact on Our Nation's "Evolving Standards of Decency," 15 Mich. J. Race & L. 223 (2009)
Clerkships:
- Justice Stephen Breyer, Supreme Court of the United States
- Judge Stephen Reinhardt, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
- Judge Jed S. Rakoff, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York
Admissions:
- U.S. Supreme Court
- U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Third, Fifth, Sixth, Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, and Federal Circuits
- U.S. District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York
- New York
- New Jersey