
Besides being court martialed in the army for his speech, Martin Garbus was jailed in both Mississippi and California for defending protesters, faced a Bar Association disciplinary proceeding for articles he wrote critical of South African judges in the New York Times and New York Review of Books (it was dismissed after a First Amendment action was filed in the New York Federal Court). He faced possible life imprisonment charges for his role as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Pentagon Papers case. He was also detained in Russia for attempting to deliver a letter from Andrei Sakharov to then-President Jimmy Carter (the attempt was successful).
Martin Garbus is one of the country's leading trial lawyers. He represents his commercial and criminal clients in both the courts and the public media. He has appeared before the United States Supreme Court as well as trial and appellate courts in the nation in over 100 cases.
The Guardian called him “one of the world's finest trial lawyers” and the “founding partner of one of America's most prestigious law firms.” In 2007, Business Week called him “legendary,” “a ferocious lawyer who has received numerous media citations as one of America's leading trial lawyers” and a “ferocious litigator”; Time magazine named him “legendary, one of the best trial lawyers in the country.” Fortune magazine called him “one of the nation's premier First Amendment attorneys,” and “legendary”; Reuters called him a “famed lawyer,” while other media have called him “America's most prominent First Amendment lawyer” with an “extraordinarily diverse practice” and “one of the country's top ten litigators.” Super Lawyers magazine designated him as a “Superlawyer.” New York Magazine and Los Angeles Magazine, over the last twelve years have named him as one of America's best trial lawyers and one of America's best intellectual property lawyer.
Mr. Garbus's skill as a trial lawyer has earned him a distinguished reputation. He is an expert at every aspect of litigation and trial, from jury selection to cross-examination to summation. His cases have established new legal precedents in the Supreme Court and courts throughout the country.
Mr. Garbus, who taught trial practice at the Yale Law School and constitutional law at Columbia, as well as in Beijing, China, and Prague, Czech Republic, is the author of six books and numerous articles that have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and in legal publications. He has given hundreds of talks on various aspects of law before bar associations, corporations, law schools and CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, and other television and radio networks. His devotion to ethics, justice, free speech, and the law has garnered respect among the legal community, commercial and corporate sectors, and beyond, earning him numerous honors, designations in Who's Who in America, recently a profile in the New York Times, Who's Who in Best Lawyers in America as well as awards from his law school and college and praise from his numerous high-profile clients.