Jonathan M. Brayman

Jonathan M. Brayman is a Partner at Breen & Pugh, where he represents clients in state and federal criminal matters at trial and on appeal, in Section 1983 civil rights actions, and in asset forfeiture defense. His practice regularly involves complex cases and the constitutional questions raised by modern surveillance and investigative technology.

Brayman is a national leader in the criminal defense bar. He is in his third term on the Board of Directors of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL), where he is one of two Seventh Circuit Vice Chairs of the Amicus Curiae Committee. In that role, he helps to identify cases that warrant NACDL’s friend-of-the-court support in Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin, and shepherds and signs the organization’s amicus briefs in the Seventh Circuit and those states’ highest courts. He also serves on NACDL’s Investment Committee, Fourth Amendment Committee, and Task Force on Artificial Intelligence. Brayman is a Co-Chair of NACDL’s annual Forensic Science Seminar. He is also a Past President of the Illinois Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (IACDL).

Brayman is a frequent speaker at national and state legal education programs on digital forensics, the Fourth Amendment, and emerging technologies, including automated license plate readers, reverse keyword warrants, and the use of artificial intelligence in criminal investigations and prosecutions. His presentations focus on equipping defense lawyers to confront the modern surveillance state in the courtroom.

Brayman has distinguished himself as both a trial and appellate lawyer. In his first year of practice, he helped win outright acquittals in his first jury trial and in his first murder trial. He has since helped win acquittals for clients in cases ranging from murder and sexual assault to bribery and computer crimes. On appeal, he has helped create favorable precedent recognizing greater protections against unreasonable searches and seizures and has won outright reversals and new trials that led to clients’ release from prison.

Brayman was one of the lead attorneys for a Chicago man exonerated after 20 years of wrongful imprisonment, helping to secure a multimillion-dollar settlement from the City of Chicago in his Section 1983 wrongful conviction case. Earlier in his career, with the Law Offices of Thomas Peters, he served as class counsel to tens of thousands of class members in civil rights class actions that successfully challenged unconstitutional policies and practices of the City of Chicago and produced wide-ranging injunctive and monetary relief.

His path to the defense bar began before law school, when he worked on the defense team in the historic “Family Secrets” Chicago Outfit trial and helped win a new trial for a man sentenced to death by a federal jury in Louisiana. He graduated from the University of Iowa College of Law in 2010 with the Willard L. Boyd Public Service Award (Highest Honors) and was named the Ramza-Fester “Rainbow Rights” Scholar for his work advancing LGBT rights. During law school, he worked for federal district judges in Chicago and New Orleans, clerked in the Chicago office of the Federal Defender Program, and served as a research assistant to Professor Angela Onwuachi-Willig (now Dean of Boston University School of Law).

Brayman has served on the Justice Council of Northwestern Pritzker School of Law’s Center on Wrongful Convictions and on the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Access to Justice’s Forms Committee for Civil Asset Forfeiture. He has been recognized by Super Lawyers and Leading Lawyers and is a member of the Chicago Inn of Court.