Noam Biale

Practice Areas

Noam represents individuals and entities in high-stakes criminal matters and complex civil litigation. He is a “client-centered, trustworthy and terrific” (Chambers, 2024) advocate who fights tirelessly to advance the interests of clients facing potentially life-altering legal challenges. Noam is described by peers and clients as “a very smart and savvy lawyer” who “handles cases at the highest level and gets great results.” (Id.)

Noam is an experienced trial lawyer and appellate practitioner who has briefed and argued more than a dozen appeals before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He primarily handles criminal defense matters, representing individuals accused of the full range of federal crimes, from insider trading and securities fraud to narcotics and firearms offenses, cybercrime (including matters related to cryptocurrency), money laundering, the Anti-Kickback Statute, the Travel Act, and RICO, among others. Noam has substantial experience engaging and, where necessary, crossing swords with the Department of Justice and state prosecutors’ offices. A member of the Criminal Justice Act (CJA) Panels for both the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, he also regularly represents indigent defendants by court appointment.

Noam’s success as a legal strategist stems from his deep intellectual engagement with complex legal issues as well as the strong client relationships he builds. He has honed a keen sense of judicial reasoning from his federal clerkships and of prosecutorial discretion from his experience as a criminal practitioner. These insights help his clients navigate the complex, often opaque process of a federal case and make the best judgment at each decision point. Noam treats his clients as true collaborators and forms connections that both empower them and allow Noam, through his advocacy, to demand that the judicial system sees them as full human beings. Noam also maintains a robust pro bono practice focusing on First Amendment, prisoners’ rights, and immigration matters. In his role as Sher Tremonte’s Pro Bono Coordinator, he oversees the firm’s commitment to litigating on behalf of clients in the public interest.

Following law school, Noam was a fellow at the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) in Montgomery, Alabama, where he represented individuals on death row and successfully overturned several death sentences on appeal. He served on the legal team that won the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision Miller v. Alabama, which abolished mandatory life-without-parole sentences for juveniles, and co-authored EJI’s report, Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror. Noam brings his engagement with the history of racial hierarchy in America to bear on his understanding of the modern criminal legal system, a perspective that informs and features prominently in his work today.

Noam’s legal scholarship has appeared in widely read law journals and he is a regular contributor to Scotusblog. In addition to his practice and writing, he teaches a seminar at NYU School of Law on emerging issues in federal criminal law.