Strategic Litigation

Anton Robinson joined the Innocence Project’s Strategic Litigation Department as a staff attorney in January 2021, focusing on mistaken identifications. Before joining the Innocence Project, Anton was a Senior Planner at the Vera Institute of Justice, where he launched and managed the New York City Bail Assessment Project to mitigate the harms of money bail and drive progressive bail reform in New York. Before his work at the Vera Institute, Anton worked as an assistant public defender at the New York County Defender Services, representing persons facing criminal charges in Manhattan Criminal and Supreme courts. He joined a working group of senior staff attorneys in the office that lobbied the state legislature for criminal justice reform. Anton also served as an assistant public defender in the Ninth Judicial Circuit in Orlando, Florida, near the beginning of his legal career. Anton is an adjunct law professor and presently teaches a virtual seminar at Vermont Law School on restorative justice and ending racial disparities in the criminal legal system. He graduated from the University of Florida, Levin College of Law, in 2006, and Florida State University in 2003.

Lauren Gottesman joined the Innocence Project’s Strategic Litigation Department as a staff attorney in May of 2020, where she focuses on suggestive identification practices and police interrogation. Prior to joining the Innocence Project, Lauren was a public defender at the Legal Aid Society’s Manhattan Criminal Defense Practice. During her last year at the Legal Aid Society, Lauren worked in their Decarceration Project, where she provided consultation, training, and direct advocacy regarding pre-trial detention issues. Before her work at the Legal Aid Society, Lauren clerked for two years for the Honorable James L. Dennis on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans, LA. During law school, Lauren interned with the Innocence Project’s post-conviction litigation unit for a full academic year. Lauren graduated from Cardozo Law School in 2013, and from Trinity College in 2008.

As the Joseph Flom Special Counsel and Director of Strategic Ligation, Chris Fabricant leads the Innocence Project’s Strategic Litigation Department, whose attorneys develop and execute national litigation and public policy strategies to address the leading causes of wrongful conviction, including eyewitness misidentification, the misapplication of forensic sciences and false confessions. Over the course of a 20-year career in criminal justice, Fabricant has served as a clinical law professor, trial attorney, and appellate counsel. His writing, scholarship and frequent public speaking focuses on the intersection of science, law reform, and social justice.

Mitha Nandagopalan joined the Innocence Project’s Strategic Litigation Department as a staff attorney in February 2023 to work on the Neighborhood Project, focusing on the community impacts of racialized police surveillance and mass misdemeanor arrests. Before joining the Innocence Project, Mitha represented individuals facing criminal charges as an assistant public defender at the Law Offices of the Public Defender of New Mexico in Albuquerque. Prior to that, they clerked for Justice Susan Carney on the Alaska Supreme Court in Fairbanks. They graduated in 2018 with a J.D. from Harvard Law School, where their clinical work focused on representing indigent tenants facing eviction and housing discrimination, and they hold a Master’s from Hunter College and a B.A. from NYU.

Tania Brief is a senior staff attorney in the Strategic Litigation Department, where she focuses on strategies to address the misapplication of forensic sciences as a leading cause of wrongful conviction. Prior to joining the Innocence Project, Tania worked for nine years at The Bronx Defenders, where she represented clients charged with crimes in all stages of litigation. She was also a member of the Forensic Practice Group, where she consulted with attorneys and conducted trainings on digital forensics. Before working at The Bronx Defenders, Tania served as a law clerk to the Honorable William H. Pauley III, United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York, and as a litigation associate at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. Tania graduated from Georgetown University Law Center, where she was a student attorney in the D.C. Law Students in Court clinic, representing low-income clients in landlord-tenant court. She received her B.A. from Yale University.