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James P. Harrington has been in private practice for 33 years, and is a
graduate of the State University at Buffalo Law School and LeMoyne
College. Jim began his legal career in 1969 as an attorney with
Neighborhood Legal Services, providing legal services for the poor in
civil matters. In1974, he entered private practice, concentrating on
criminal law, also serving as confidential law clerk to Judge J. Douglas
Trost, Erie County Family Court Judge, from 1978-1980. He recently
served a term as Chair of the Erie County Bar Association's important
Judiciary Committee, in charge of the rating of candidates for judicial
office. He is a Past President of the New York State Association of
Criminal Defense Lawyers. Currently he serves as the Criminal Justice
Act representative for the Western District of New York, representing
the interests of the attorneys accepting criminal case assignments in
federal courts.
Mr. Harrington is a lecturer at the State University of New York at
Buffalo Law School in the area of death penalty defense, and he teaches a
course in constitutional law at Buffalo State College. He is listed in
"The Best Lawyers in America® 2007."
Throughout his career, Mr. Harrington has handled many noteworthy
cases, in state and federal courts. One of Harrington's highest profile
cases was the defense of Owen Carron, a member of the British Parliament
and a leader of Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland, who was arrested at the
U.S./Canadian border while attempting to enter the United States.
Jim also successfully represented Rey Avelino, a Canadian, who was
charged with importing jet airplanes from Vietnam in violation of the
Trading With the Enemy Act. Most recently Mr. Harrington was in the
national news for his successful efforts to get bail set for our client,
one of the so-called "Lackawanna Six," individuals charged with
providing material assistance to Al Qaeda. He has a string of improbable
acquittals in a wide variety of criminal cases, including murders, drug
cases, and sexual offense cases, in which a guilty verdict had
otherwise seemed inevitable.
One of the first attorneys to be certified for the defense of
capital cases in New York after the 1995 reintroduction of the death
penalty, Jim was lead counsel in the only death penalty case which was
tried in Buffalo under the new statute. Jonathan Parker faced the death
penalty for having shot, and killed a Buffalo police officer. Mr.
Harrington persuaded the jury to spare the life of his client following a
lengthy trial. He has since been appointed to several capital cases,
succeeding in avoiding the death penalty in every one. He has also
represented pro bono, a man convicted of a capital case in Georgia, who
was sentenced to death, in his post conviction habeas corpus case.
