Patricia Miller

Patricia Miller served as the Chief of the Special Federal Litigation Division of the New York City Law Department for 10 years. Special Fed is responsible for the defense of NYC law enforcement personnel in Federal Civil Rights actions in the Eastern and Southern Districts of New York.  Prior, she served as the Deputy Chief of Trials for the Special Fed Division.  Ms. Miller was also a trial supervisor and senior trial attorney for the Labor and Employment Division of the Law Department.  She has tried to verdict more than 60 cases in federal court and has supervised hundreds more. 

Ms. Miller was named Top Women in Law 2016 by the New York Law Journal, is a 2017 recipient of the New York State Bar Association Shira Scheindlin Award for Excellence in the Courtroom, has been awarded the 2020 International Municipal Lawyers Association Charles S. Rhyne Lifetime Achievement in Municipal Law Award, and is the 2022 recipient of The Corporation Counsel's Award for Distinguished Legal Service. 

Before joining the Law Department, Ms. Miller clerked for William M. Acker, former U.S. District Judge for Northern District of Alabama, and was an associate at Cahill Gordon & Reindel.  She completed her undergraduate work at Fordham University and obtained her law degree from William and Mary in Virginia, where she was a member of the Law Review Executive Staff. She has served as chair of the Law Department's Committee on Diversity Recruitment and Retention, the first member of the LGBT Community to hold that position, and is the 2013 recipient of the Jane M. Bolin Diversity in Leadership Award.  Ms. Miller served as Co-Chair of the Federal Bar Council Diversity Committee and serves on the Federal Bar Council Second Circuit Committee and on the Federal Bar Council Board of Trustees.

Currently Ms. Miller is an adjunct professor at Fordham University School of Law, serves on the faculty of NITA (National Institute for Trial Advocacy) programs, and lectures nationally on trial practice.