Drew W. Sumner is of counsel to Portale Randazzo LLP and joined the firm in 2017. Prior to joining Portale Randazzo, Mr. Sumner was among the youngest attorneys to be named partner at one of New York’s largest and oldest insurance defense firms. Mr. Sumner’s litigation practice focuses on Civil Rights cases brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C. Section 1983, employment matters and commercial disputes. Over the past seven years, Mr. Sumner obtained favorable results as lead counsel to scores of municipalities across New York, while defending cases involving claims of police and governmental misconduct and discrimination and many others, from pre-suit through trial and appeal.
Of note, Mr. Sumner represented multiple municipal entities and police officers in nine contentious lawsuits stemming from a police-involved shooting that resulted in the death of an African-American college football player and the arrests of several other student-athletes involving various levels of force.
Mr. Sumner successfully argued for summary judgment for a police officer against allegation of false arrest in violation of the Fourth Amendment in Soldo v. Vill. of Monticello, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 115730 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 29, 2016).
The Second Circuit affirmed an Eastern District decision granting summary judgment to Mr. Sumner’s clients in Bartels v. Inc. Vill. of Lloyd Harbor, 97 F. Supp. 3d 198 (E.D.N.Y. 2015) affirmed by Bartels v. Schwarz, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 5033 (2d Cir. N.Y., Mar. 17, 2016) against multiple claimed civil rights violations.
Mr. Sumner obtained dismissal of all claims against a municipal public safety officer brought by self-styled religious dissident residents of an Orthodox Jewish enclave in upstate New York. The Plaintiffs in that suit sought dissolution of the Village government as they claimed it violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments. On appeal, the Second Circuit affirmed the decision dismissing the case in its entirety. See Kiryas Joel Alliance v. Vill. of Kiryas Joel, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 137074 (S.D.N.Y. Nov. 28, 2011) affirmed by Kiryas Joel Alliance v. Vill. of Kiryas Joel, U.S. App. LEXIS 18946 (2d Cir. N.Y., Sept. 10, 2012).
In addition, Mr. Sumner counsels private-sector clients on entity formation, asset protection and other business affairs.
Mr. Sumner holds a Bachelors of Science from Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts, and obtained his law degree from Hofstra University School of Law in 2010. Mr. Sumner is admitted to practice before Courts in the State of New York as well as United States District Courts in the Eastern, Northern and Southern Districts of New York and the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
