Corey Stoughton

Corey Stoughton is a seasoned appellate advocate specializing in constitutional law, complex civil litigation, and criminal law. She is widely known for developing and winning innovative claims across a broad range of legal issues and is a nationally recognized expert on access to justice, police reform, free speech, and equalities law.

Prior to joining Selendy Gay as Special Counsel, Corey served as Attorney-in-Charge of Law Reform and Special Litigation at The Legal Aid Society, overseeing its strategic litigation practice. In this role, she led a large team focused on a variety of cutting-edge constitutional and statutory issues, including the impact of COVID-19 in prisons and jails; as lead counsel in Payne v. City of New York (S.D.N.Y.), which challenged the NYPD’s use of inappropriate force against protesters; and in Davis v. City of New York (S.D.N.Y.), which challenged and reformed the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk practices.

Before joining The Legal Aid Society, she led Liberty, the U.K.’s preeminent human rights and civil liberties organization, where she oversaw cases in U.K. courts and the European Court of Human Rights. In 2015, Corey was appointed by President Barack Obama as senior counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights in the Department of Justice, where she focused on voting rights, police reform, juvenile justice and discrimination in education, housing, lending, and employment, and served on the White House Legal Aid Interagency Roundtable. From 2005 to 2015, Corey managed complex litigation and advocacy campaigns for NYCLU, New York’s state affiliate of the ACLU. In that role, she litigated Hurrell-Harring v. State of New York, a landmark case that established the right to counsel at arraignments in New York and led to historic reforms to New York’s public defense system. For almost a decade, Corey was an adjunct professor at NYU School of Law focused on teaching students how to develop and litigate complex federal civil rights claims.

In June 2023, the New York State Bar Association honored Corey with its prestigious Award for Excellence in Mandated Representation. New York State’s Commission on Judicial Nominations three times included her among the slate of nominees for Associate Justice and Chief Justice of the New York Court of Appeals. She serves on the ABA Task Force on the Independence of Public Defense and on the New York State Office of Court Administration’s Advisory Committee on the Criminal Procedure Law.

Corey graduated from Harvard Law School, served as a Fulbright Scholar, and clerked for the Honorable Cornelia G. Kennedy, on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.