David Berman is a Principal of Peter-Romer Friedman Law PLLC and the Head of the Firm's New York Office. 

David is an experienced public interest lawyer who represents individual workers, victims of all forms of discrimination and governmental abuse, non-profit organizations, and plaintiffs in class action lawsuits. David has a diverse practice across a range of legal areas, including employment discrimination, housing discrimination, false arrests, malicious prosecutions, use of excessive force by police and correctional officers, the abuse of children and persons with disabilities, First Amendment free speech, and other constitutional questions at both the trial and appellate level. David has helped obtain some of the largest and most novel settlements across a range of federal laws and constitutional claims, including the largest wrongful conviction settlement in the history of New York City on behalf of a man who spent 24 years incarcerated and faced the death penalty for a double homicide that he did not commit. 

David's civil rights cases often seek to solve both new and novel problems and those resulting from entrenched discrimination, including fighting against discriminatory algorithms by tech companies, advocating for those wrongfully convicted based on withheld or manufactured evidence, ensuring the enforcement of newly enacted fair housing protections, and fighting against arbitrary government actions that harm vulnerable populations. 

Before joining the firm in 2024, David was an associate at Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel and in the Impact Litigation Group at BraunHagey & Borden. Before starting his litigation career as a civil rights attorney, David was a law clerk to Judge Cheryl Ann Krause of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and Judge Allyne R. Ross of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York. 

David graduated from Stanford Law School where he received Gerald Gunther Prizes for Outstanding Performance in Employment Law, Criminal Procedure, and Torts and served as a student-attorney in the Stanford Community Law Clinic where he represented local community members in defending against eviction, obtaining criminal record expungements, and advocating for social security disability benefits.

David earned his B.A. in political science magna cum laude from Brown University and was selected for the Pi Sigma Alpha Political Science Honors Society. 

David has been recognized for his impactful work as a public interest litigator and has been named a Super Lawyer Rising Star in Civil Rights each year from 2021-2024. 

David's cases have advanced equal rights and opportunity for diverse communities, including by: 

• Securing the first major settlement over digital bias in which Facebook agreed to stop advertisers from deterring job, housing, and credit ads away from people based on race, age, and gender. 

• Reaching a $17.5 Million settlement, the largest wrongful conviction settlement in the history of New York City, on behalf of a man who spent 24 years incarcerated and faced the death penalty for a double homicide that he did not commit. 

• Winning a first-of-its kind bench trial against a large New York City and Westchester County landlord where the Court determined that the landlord's use of minimum income requirements violated New York City's prohibition against source-of-income discrimination, ordered widespread injunctive relief, and ordered the landlord to pay nearly $1 million in compensatory and punitive damages. 

• Negotiating significant settlements on behalf of a group of persons wrongfully detained  based on faulty tests for K2 when visiting their loved ones in New York correctional facilities. 

• Obtaining a federal court ruling that it’s unconstitutional to require people who never committed sexual misconduct to register as sex offenders.