NYCDS strives to ensure that our staff reflects the diversity of the communities we represent. Our diverse team speaks more than 20 different languages, including Arabic, Bangla, Bengali, Cantonese, Dutch, Farsi, French, German, Haitian Creole, Hebrew, Hindi, Mandarin, Romanian, Russian, Slovene, Spanish, Tagalog, Tamil, Tamizh, Telugu and Urdu.
Stan Germán has spent his entire career as a criminal defense attorney. He received his J.D. from New York University School of Law in 1995. Upon graduation, Mr. Germán went to work as a staff attorney for the Legal Aid Society of New York City in Kings County. Thereafter, he worked as a staff attorney at New York County Defender Services. In 2002, he went into private practice where he litigated criminal cases before the United States District Courts in New York, Washington D.C. and Florida. In 2015, Mr. Germán left private practice and returned to New York County Defender Services to serve as Executive Director.
Mr. Germán currently serves as co-chair of the Defense Function Committee for the American Bar Association and chairperson of the American Council of Chief Defenders. He serves on the Board of Directors for the Chief Defenders Association of New York, the National Legal Aid and Defender Association and New York County Defender Services. He is a lifetime member of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and a member of the New York City Bar Association. Mr. Germán has been honored as one of the Top 100 Lawyers for Criminal Defense by The National Trial Lawyers.
Carolyn Wilson has been a public defender for her entire career. Upon graduation from Brooklyn Law School in 1980 she joined the staff of the Criminal Defense Division of the Legal Aid Society. She remained at Legal Aid for seventeen years working first as a staff attorney in Queens County and later as a supervising attorney both in Queens and Brooklyn.
In 1996 she wrote a proposal to form New York County Defender Services in response to an RFP issued by the City of New York. NYCDS came into existence on July 1, 1997, and began taking cases in September of that year. Ms. Wilson has served as its director from the beginning.
Ms. Wilson has been a long-term member of the Committee on the Judiciary of the New York City Bar Association.
