Ehsan F Chowdhry, ESQ is the owner of E F CHOWDHRY LAW PRACTICE, LLC, a law firm exclusively dedicated to statewide criminal defense, juvenile law, municipal-traffic law and white collar crime. He is licensed in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. He has court admissions for the Supreme Court of the United States, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey.
He is honored to have been named to New Jersey Governor Philip (Phil) D. Murphy’s (then Governor Elect) Transition Team as a Co-Chair for the Law & Justice Committee, Social Justice Subcommittee and previously as a member of his select Law & Public Safety Working Group.
He attended Rutgers College of Rutgers the State University of New Jersey, graduated from Monmouth University with his B.A. (Bachelor of Arts) while attaining Dean’s List, earned his J.D. (Juris Doctor) from Widener University School of Law while attaining Dean's List, served as a member of the Trial Advocacy Honor Society and as the President of the Minority Law Students Association (MLSA). He also was the recipient of the Most Promising Civil Litigator Award, The Center for Forensic Economic Studies Excellence in Litigation Award and a semi-finalist in the Hugh B. Pearce Trial Advocacy Competition. He was a Certified Legal Intern for the Pennsylvania Civil Law Clinic and a Legal Research Assistant to Professor John L. Gedid summarizing the Administrative Procedure Act to be utilized by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL).
Thereafter, he earned his LL.M. (Master of Laws) degree in Trial Advocacy from the nationally ranked program at Temple University James E. Beasley School of Law. Both law degrees included relevant coursework to his exclusive field in criminal law, including Advanced Criminal Procedure, Advanced Evidence, Advanced Trial Methods, Criminal Law, the Federal Rules of Evidence, the Intensive Trial Advocacy Program (ITAP), Juvenile Law and Pennsylvania Criminal Practice.
After graduating from law school and during his LL.M. degree pursuit, he commenced a state judicial clerkship with the Honorable Vincent J. Grasso, A.J.S.C. (retired) that initially began in the New Jersey Superior Court, Law Division, Criminal Part. Subsequently, he became sworn in as an Assistant Prosecutor in the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office in the Litigation Section of the Grand Jury Unit. From there he transferred to the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office where he served in the Megan’s Law Unit, Trial Team, Grand Jury Unit and the Juvenile Investigations Unit. He has investigated and prosecuted thousands of cases. He was temporarily sworn in as a Special Deputy Attorney General and has completed Class #48 of the intensive New Jersey Attorney General’s Advocacy Institute Top Gun School Investigating and Prosecuting Gang, Gun and Drug cases. He has rounded out a decade of state, county and municipal criminal law experience for the government in pursuit of victims and their rights and more recently for the defense, entering his thirteenth year and has handled everything from murder to speeding violations. A quote Ehsan used to adhere to as an Assistant Prosecutor and that he applies as a defense attorney today was from Associate Justice George A. Sutherland of the United States Supreme Court. He was born in England and during his years on the court, India was property of the British and Pakistan was not formed until 1947. In Berger v. United States, 295 U.S. 78, 88 (1935) Justice Sutherland eloquently wrote:
“The United States Attorney is the representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all, and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done. As such, he is in a peculiar and very definite sense the servant of the law, the two-fold aim of which is that guilt shall not escape or innocence suffer. He may prosecute with earnestness and vigor -- indeed, he should do so. But, while he may strike hard blows, he is not at liberty to strike foul ones. It is as much his duty to refrain from improper methods calculated to produce a wrongful conviction as it is to use every legitimate means to bring about a just one.”
As a result of his jury and bench trial experience, requisite contested matters, continuing legal education credits, judicial | peer review and passage of the state’s written exam, Ehsan has been certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Criminal Trial Attorney and his recertification is currently pending. Moreover, as of June 1, 2018, he is only 1 of 4 attorneys in the state of New Jersey who is nationally certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy (NBTA) as a Criminal Trial Advocate. He has also been designated by the National Institute for Trial Advocacy (NITA) as a “Master Advocate” and "Advocate."
Ehsan's awards and honors include, but are not limited to, receiving the New Jersey Law Journal's New Leader of the Bar Award for 2017 and being the only known solo attorney on the list (previously 40 under 40), the Professional Lawyer of the Year Award for 2015 from the New Jersey State Bar Association (NJSBA) in conjunction with the New Jersey Commission on Professionalism in the Law, becoming the first government attorney to receive the Ten Leaders of Government Prosecutors Award and under his presidency of the New Jersey Muslim Lawyers Association (NJMLA) co-accepting for the organization the Social Justice Award from the Muslim American Council (MAC). To further honor NJMLA and his presidency he is purchasing a commemorative brick from the New Jersey State Bar Foundation to be placed at the New Jersey Law Center in New Brunswick.