Bio

David A. Bythewood

My name is David A. Bythewood, and I'm of black African heritage. I am a descendant of English, African American, Native American (Seminole and Cherokee), Irish, and Jewish. I was born in Hempstead, New York, on November 18, 1944, and am a graduate of the Hempstead Public Schools, Adelphi University (BA), and Hofstra University School of Law (J.D.).

I am also a graduate of the American Academy McAllister Institute of Funeral Service. I am a member of the Sigma Pi Phi fraternity (“Boulé”), the 100 Black Men, and a lifetime member of the NAACP. In addition, I belong to the New York State Bar Association, Long Beach Lawyers, and Nassau County Bar Association, and the former chair of its Banking Law Committee. During the 1960s, I was active in the Civil Rights movement as a member of C.O.R.E. as a civil rights worker.

Professionally, I am a lawyer with more than 40 years of experience. I have been admitted to New York, Washington, D.C., and several federal courts. I handled matters outside those jurisdictions in California, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Texas, and I have been led counsel for matters in the Bahamas and Germany. I am an expert trial attorney. I am the featured lawyer in the publication known as Who's Who in American Law 2022.

Regarding discrimination matters, as a defense attorney, I successfully defended the Times Mirror Co. and its subsidiary Newsday and the Nassau County Board of Elections. As a plaintiff’s attorney, I successfully prosecuted several discrimination lawsuits. In 2008, forced NYS’s Roslyn School District to adopt its first anti-discrimination policy. Other cases were defeating Heublein when it claimed that my client’s trademark, “Club Beer” infringed on their use of the term Club.

Another was defeating a landlord and H.U.D. in their efforts to wrongly evict impoverished, but very hard-working, tenants. Perhaps the most satisfying was years ago when I resoundingly defeated Cravath, Swaine, and Moore after one of its lawyers tried to intimidate me. My other clients include large and small businesses such as Twin County Steel, Inc., Brooklyn Welding Co., Inc., and W.R. Grace. In 1997, at Libya’s request, I was licensed by the U.S. Treasury as the attorney for the nation of Libya for matters in the U.S. and former attorney for Front Royal Ins. Co. and Devron Pharmaceuticals.

My experience and expertise as a lawyer include corporate governance, fiduciary responsibility, contracts, trademarks, the constitution, civil rights, property (real and personal), employment, torts, trial advocacy, and criminal defense. Some of those that which has been most visible are high-profile “white collar crime” and “organized crime” defenses. Otherwise, I have been in the media as a legal commentator on Fox, CNN, MSNBC, and Court TV.

Also, I acted for petroleum traders Chem Oil Industries and the Crispin companies, in the 1980s. In the oil and gas arena, I performed many functions, including but not limited to being the attorney for Denis Baron, who was a VP at Mobil and rose to be a member of the board of Mobil of the Orient. Two of my well-publicized criminal defense cases were:

• My successful defense of Roland Davis, a member of the Board of Directors of the Guardian National Bank, after it was seized by the F.D.I.C. and F.B.I. in June of 1990. Prior to that, in 1988, I successfully defended a now deceased Joseph Gambino in a case referred to as the “AKA Gas Scam Case”.
• Some other very satisfying defense was after converting a lawyer defendant to a prosecution witness and securing a no-prosecute letter in a case where he was a bank fraud co-conspirator. I successfully defended him in disbarment proceedings commenced on account of his felonious activities.
• I defended a Cuban American who bankrupted his minority business enterprise and was thereafter accused of bankruptcy fraud. This was all due to the U.S. Bankruptcy Judge not knowing or ignoring the law, the bankruptcy case trustee not knowing the law, the US Attorney being blind to the intent of Congress, as set forth in the affirmative action rules, and due to his bankruptcy lawyers not knowing the law, also due to his bankruptcy lawyer having given false and inculpatory deposition testimony. 
• I successfully defended a young mother accused of the felony of criminal possession of a weapon in the 2nd Degree by using a Stockholm Syndrome defense.
• In King's County, I recently successfully caused an indictment for criminal possession of loaded firearm to be dismissed by motion practice. I made the motion and the prosecutor folded her cards and gave up. The motion was that strong!

I served for several years as a committee Vice Chairman for the Trial Techniques Committee of the Tort and Insurance Practice Section of the American Bar Association and served for 2 years as Chairman of the Banking Law Committee of the Nassau County Bar Association. Presently, and for more than 30 years, I have been an Adjunct Professor at the Hofstra University School of Law, teaching the C. David Woycik Trial Techniques course, as well as the National Institute of Trial Advocacy (N.I.T.A.) Course “Trial Techniques”.

When he was a New York State Senator, I was a senior advisor to former Gov. David A. Paterson. For more than 20 years, I served as a member of the Nassau County Democratic Judicial Screening Committee. I also served as a member of the Board of Directors of the United Service Organization (“USO”) of Greater New York. In that capacity, I orchestrated its 2006 Tuskegee Airmen Dinner.

For more than 15 years, I served as a Commissioner of the Board of Zoning Appeals for the City of Long Beach, New York. In addition, I am a member of the Board of Directors of the Long Beach Lawyers Association and formerly a member of the Board of Directors of Concerned Citizens for Roslyn Youth. As a member of the USO Board, I single-handedly organized and orchestrated the March 2006 USO fundraiser that honored the Tuskegee Airmen and Eleanor Roosevelt, (members of the Roosevelt family were present at my request) and brought in sufficient money to rescue the USO from a financial crisis.

During that event, the speech of Tuskegee Airman Lee Archer (a World War II ACE) rang in the ears of all present as he told how moved he was by the honor since he recalled the USO refusing to allow admission to the Tuskegee Airmen in Italy because they were Negro. During the late 70s, I was elected to the Hempstead Public Schools Board of Education, and during my term, I was instrumental in getting rid of “Social Promotion”.

In the school year following the demise of social promotion, the performance of the students in the district improved dramatically. It was reported that their improvement exceeded that of any other school district in the United States. While on that board, I also conducted a successful program using Operant Conditioning and the group process, resulting in the 15 participating first-year high school students - some of whom were several grades below the appropriate reading and writing level - radically increasing their skills.

At the end of the first year, they were all reading at the 12th-grade level or better. That group was known as the “Advocate Circle”. Much later, in March of 2001, I was awarded a “Hero’s Award” by Hempstead Public Schools for my prior service. In 2005, I served as a Special Prosecutor for the Hempstead Public Schools. When the Tappanzee Bridge was to be rebuilt, I was a member of the New York State Thruway Authority’s negotiating team, which had the task of negotiating a “Project Labor Agreement” patterned after that first established in the Boston Harbor matter.

In addition to taking part in those negotiations, I drafted the agreement’s affirmative action section which section was challenged and found to be constitutional by the NYS Court of Appeals. Then in the world of finance, from 2000 to 2002, I acted as lead negotiator for Universal Genesis (to negotiate loans to Western European Banks).

I also acted as its chairman’s special representative. (Universal Genesis is an international conglomerate owned by the Salman family. It started as the Salman Brothers, which evolved into the Comindus Group. The business originally involved commodities trading and investment banking in Iran before the arrival of the Ayatollah. In partnership with David Rockefeller, they owned Chase Manhattan Bank of Iran.).

As part of my long involvement in auto sports, in 1972, I created the Shelby Owners Association, which became the international organization for Carroll Shelby automobiles. With that club and in discussions with Henry Ford II, I headed an effort to create a new Ford-based sports car. Henry Ford II assigned 2 Ford VPs to assist. Unfortunately, it did not come to fruition, and the remnants of it continue as the Shelby Automobile Club, which I claim no interest in.

This included friendships with Carroll Shelby and others like ACCUS/FIA director John V. Oliveau, as well as being acquainted with Henry Ford II. In March 1967, I was honorably discharged from the US Army, and on October 27, 2016, I was honored to receive the Trailblazer award as Man of the Year from the Amistad Bar Association. Presently, I have successfully defended a number of foreclosure cases.

Also, on the lighter side, as an amateur photographer, one of my photographs was used for the cover of the Herbie Hancock album, “Speak Like a Child”, which received a Grammy nomination. In addition, he has a minor starring role as police Capt. Davis in the movie released in early 2022, "Lullaby".