Lisa Cahill

Practice Areas

Following on a formative two-year federal district court clerkship, Lisa Cahill has been litigating criminal and civil matters successfully out of New York City for more than 30 years. She was raised to be a lawyer's lawyer -- curious, tenacious and dogged, with a passion for finding the case or the fact unlocking the key to a litigation win. Distilling these traits into an effective brand of advocacy, Ms. Cahill has built a track record of wins in a wide range of sophisticated civil and criminal matters. She was elected to the partnerships of two prominent litigation firms -- Zuckerman Spaeder and Hughes Hubbard & Reed -- on the strength of that record. In 2018, Ms. Cahill opened her own firm. She provides the same outstanding "Big Law" work product and skilled representation only now on a more intimate and economical scale. Highlights since launching her own firm have included obtaining the rare regulatory equivalent of a full acquittal for a former Division I Associate Head Coach in a "Power Five" Men's Basketball Conference accused of NCAA recruiting violations; obtaining a non-jail, no fine, no supervised release sentencing result for a former Credit Suisse investment banker facing 10 to 12 years' exposure under the USSG on a wire fraud conviction related to the Mozambique "tuna bond" scandal; and litigating with the City and State of New York to obtain meaningful compensation for a woman wrongfully imprisoned for 10 years following her false confession to infamous NYC Police Detective Louis Scarcella.

Career

Ms. Cahill's career began with a prestigious two-year clerkship under the late U.S. District Judge T.F. Gilroy Daly (D. Conn.), widely considered to be one of the finest district judges to have ever served on that bench. Judge Daly taught her the meaning to a successful legal career of integrity, hard work, empathy, and the exercise of sound judgment. Following the clerkship, Ms. Cahill spent the next 23 years working side-by-side and learning from Edward J.M. Little, a prominent NYC litigator who had formerly been the Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York. She practiced criminal defense and civil litigation in roughly equal measure, and won election over those years to the partnerships of the Zuckerman Spaeder and Hughes Hubbard & Reed law firms. Ms. Cahill left Hughes Hubbard in 2016, following her successful leadership of the firm's pro bono effort (alongside The Legal Aid Society) to obtain the exoneration of Vanessa Gathers. Ms. Gathers had spent 10 years in jail on the basis of a false confession obtained by infamous NYC Police Detective Louis Scarcella. Ms. Cahill spent the next year-and-a-half successfully litigating against the City and State of New York to obtain just compensation for Ms. Gathers. In 2018, she opened her own law firm, Lisa Cahill PLLC.

Professional Memberships

Board Member, New York Council of Defense Lawyers ("NYCDL") (2023-2025)

Co-Chair, Sentencing Guidelines Committee, NYCDL

Member, NYCDL

Member, Women's White Collar Defense Association

Member, Federal Bar Council

Personal

Ms. Cahill lives in New York City with her husband and daughter. She is an identical twin, a holder of dual American-Irish citizenship, and a three-time runner of the NYC marathon.

Education