C. Justin Brown

C. Justin Brown is a criminal defense attorney based in Baltimore, Maryland. He runs a law firm called Brown Law. He currently represents Adnan Syed, who was convicted of the 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee and was the subject of the first season of the podcast Serial in 2014.

Brown grew up in Baltimore and attended the Gilman School. He graduated from Cornell University in 1992, and went to the University of Maryland School of Law, where he graduated with honors. He was an editor on the Maryland Law Review. After law school, Brown clerked for Judge Andre M. Davis (retired) in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland.

Prior to becoming a lawyer, Brown was a journalist whose work was published in numerous outlets, including The Baltimore Sun, The New York Times, Newsweek, the Associated Press, The Christian Science Monitor, Details and Maxim. He covered the war in Kosovo from 1997 to 1999.

Representation of Adnan Syed

Syed was convicted in 2000 of murdering his ex-girlfriend, Hae Min Lee. At the time, both Syed and Lee were high school seniors at Woodlawn High School in Baltimore County, Maryland. Syed received a sentence of life imprisonment, plus 30 years. He currently resides in North Branch Correctional Institution in Cumberland, Maryland.

Brown started representing Syed in 2009 and has been his lead attorney ever since. Brown represented Syed in his second post-conviction hearing, which commenced on February 3, 2016, and lasted for five days. On June 30, 2016, Judge Martin Welch, of the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, granted Syed a new trial based on ineffective assistance of counsel when trial counsel, Cristina Gutierrez, failed to cross examine a State’s witness with a fax cover sheet pertaining to cell phone records.The State of Maryland appealed the granting of the new trial and the case proceeded to the Maryland Court of Special Appeals. On March 29, 2018, by a 2 to 1 decision, the Court of Special Appeals reversed the lower court’s ruling on the cell phone records issue, but upheld the grant of a new trial based on Gutierrez’ failure to contact alibi witness Asia McClain. The State appealed a second time, to the Court of Appeals of Maryland, and on 09 March 2019 Syed's conviction was reinstated. There remain few alternative avenues for attempts at exonerating Syed, but his attorney has publicly stated that he will continue to seek justice for both Hae Min and Adnan.

Brown has been recognized as a Super Lawyer each year since 2015. In 2016, The Daily Record named him an “Influential Marylander.”

Brown's father, C. Christopher Brown, is a retired civil rights attorney who founded the law firm Brown, Goldstein & Levy, and formerly was the lead counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland.