Milbank LLP today announced a significant expansion of its partnership with the Perlmutter Center for Legal Justice at Cardozo School of Law, reinforcing the firm’s longstanding commitment to advancing justice for wrongfully convicted and over‑sentenced individuals. The firm will increase its charitable donation by $1.5 million to a total of $2.5 million to be contributed through 2029.
“Milbank has long been committed to standing up for those who have been wrongfully convicted or unjustly over‑sentenced, and expanding our partnership with the Perlmutter Center is an important step in that mission,” said Milbank Chairman Scott A. Edelman. “This deeper collaboration will allow us to reach more individuals in need, reinforce critical post‑conviction work, and help drive meaningful change.”
The expanded support ensures that the Perlmutter Center can broaden its capacity to serve more individuals in need of post‑conviction legal assistance and strengthens the infrastructure of the Milbank Exoneration Review Unit, a joint initiative dedicated to identifying and litigating wrongful conviction and excessive sentencing cases. The funding will also allow the Perlmutter Center to retain additional staff, including attorneys, investigators, paralegals, and/or a supervising attorney.
“Since its foundation, our partnership with Milbank has been incredibly successful. Milbank is one of the most prestigious law firms and the opportunity to collaborate over the past several years has made the work of the Perlmutter Center that much more impactful,” said Josh Dubin, executive director of the Perlmutter Center for Legal Justice at Cardozo Law. “The furthering of Milbank and the Perlmutter Center’s relationship will allow us to take that success even further. I’m incredibly grateful to Scott Edelman for his dedication to this line of work and his support in expanding our partnership.”
“The partnership between Milbank and the Perlmutter Center has made a huge difference in the lives of clients and in providing the staff attorneys the necessary bandwidth to do this critical work,” said Melanie Leslie, Dean of Cardozo School of Law. “We are committed to being a leader in training students and lawyers in effective advocacy to provide relief to those individuals in the criminal justice system whose cases deserve reevaluation."
This expanded partnership underscores Milbank’s deep commitment to pro bono advocacy and systemic reform and builds upon an earlier donation the firm made in 2024, which established the Milbank Exoneration and Resentencing Review Unit at the Perlmutter Center for Legal Justice at Cardozo Law. In 2025, Milbank lawyers dedicated over 7,500 hours to nearly a dozen Perlmutter cases.
