Megan Benett

Megan Wolfe Benett is a trial and appellate lawyer representing plaintiffs in complex product liability cases, mass torts, aviation litigation, maritime claims and 42 U.S.C. § 1983 cases against state and local government entities in federal and state courts. Ms. Benett has also been appointed by the judges of the Southern District of New York to serve on the court’s Criminal Justice Act (CJA) Panel, through which she represents indigent individuals charged with having committed federal criminal offenses.

After graduating from Stanford University, Ms. Benett worked in Washington, D.C. at a national political party committee, on a Senate campaign and at a lobbying firm.  Following her graduation from the University of Michigan Law School, Ms. Benett was the Albert M. Sacks Fellow at the Harvard Law School Criminal Justice Institute.

She subsequently worked in the Boston office of a large California-based law firm before leaving for a year to serve as staff counsel at the Claims Resolution Tribunal in Zürich, Switzerland, where she adjudicated claims to dormant Swiss bank accounts that had been owned by victims of Nazi persecution. Upon her return to the United States, Ms. Benett was a clerk to the Honorable Judith S. Kaye, Chief Judge of the New York State Court of Appeals and, prior to that, a public defender in Manhattan at the Legal Aid Society.

At Kreindler & Kreindler, Ms. Benett has represented, among others, victims of the Mumbai terror attacks, individuals and businesses harmed by the BP Deepwater Horizon oil disaster and families of the passengers killed in the crash of Colgan Flight 3407.  Through the Southern District of New York’s CJA Panel, she has defended individuals against criminal charges including securities and health care fraud, firearms offenses, bank and wire fraud and narcotics conspiracies.

Ms. Benett has argued cases to the United States Courts of Appeals for the Second and Ninth Circuits and the First and Second Departments in New York State and has tried cases and argued substantive motions in a number of district courts in the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, as well as in numerous New York State courts.

Education:

• University of Michigan Law School at Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor, Michigan, J.D.
• Stanford University