Faith Gay is a founding partner at Selendy Gay.
In a nationally recognized career spanning more than three decades, Faith has been lead counsel in over 35 jury trials and has successfully navigated bet-the-company crises and investigations for scores of Fortune 500 companies. Before founding Selendy Gay, Faith was co-chair of the national trial practice at one of the country’s top litigation firms and a highly respected federal prosecutor. Raised in rural Georgia and a resident of New York City, Faith is comfortable in courtrooms around the country.
Faith was recently named one of “America’s Top 200 Lawyers” by Forbes and a “Litigation Trailblazer” by the National Law Journal. She is a two-time recipient of Crain’s “100 Notable Women in Law” award, and on Crain’s list of “Notable LGBTQIA+ Leaders.” The Office of the Appellate Defender presented Faith with the prestigious Gould Award for Outstanding Appellate Advocacy in 2019. She is highly rated by Chambers (in Commercial Litigation, Government Investigations, and White-Collar matters) and is ranked among The Best Lawyers in America by Best Lawyers (in the Commercial Litigation, Corporate Governance Law, and Criminal Defense: White Collar categories). Faith is a long-time recipient of top litigation awards, including the Lawdragon 500, Benchmark’s “Litigation Stars” and “Top 250 Women in Litigation,” Super Lawyers, and many others.
Chambers lists Faith as one of the country’s top litigators, citing “significant praise for her work in high-stakes litigation covering commercial claims, white-collar issues and matters of constitutional law.” Clients have touted her “extraordinary feel for litigation,” saying: “I’ve never met a lawyer like her; she combines so many talents in a single human body. She’s incredibly responsive, unbelievably insightful, and her advice is always sound.”
In naming her a “Top Female Trial Lawyer,” Law360 described Faith as “a great litigator” with “a kind of magnetic charisma, a likeability and intelligence that allow her to present complicated cases in a way that disarms tough judges, hostile witnesses, and skeptical jury members.”
Faith is a former chief of the Civil Rights Unit (Criminal Division) and deputy chief of the Special Prosecutions Unit in the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York. With deep experience in plaintiff and defense matters, she divides her time between complex civil litigation, corporate governance, and white-collar and regulatory investigations.
In her commercial practice, she focuses on complex contractual and financial instrument disputes, securities, antitrust and bankruptcy litigation, intellectual property disputes, and consumer class actions. She also has extensive experience in Board and Special Committee assignments, representation of C-Suite executives and high net worth individuals in corporate and family law matters, and first and foremost, in resolving litigation that is seriously compromised and requires emergency re-shaping. Her long roster of high-profile clients that she has served as national or lead trial counsel includes the American Federation of Teachers, Bausch, Bridgewater, Coca-Cola, Colgate, Domtar, Edge & Node, E-Trade, Home Depot, MacAndrews & Forbes, McKinsey & Company, Novartis, Nuance, Pfizer, Regeneron, Revlon, Sandoz, and Schwab.
In her white-collar practice, Faith has represented individuals and corporations in investigations by the SEC, FINRA, DOJ, FDA, IRS, EPA, DOD, and numerous state attorneys general. She has led internal investigations at the request of corporations, boards of directors, and special committees. No individual or corporation that Faith has represented while under investigation has been indicted, pleaded guilty, or forced to accept deferred prosecution.
Faith has also devoted significant time and energy to public interest litigation. She recently obtained a complete reversal of Marissa Alexander’s conviction and mandatory 20-year sentence for allegedly firing a warning shot at her serially abusive spouse. She co-founded the American Immigration Representation Project to provide lawyers to immigrant detainees in response to new federal immigration and deportation policies. Faith also represented New York Governor David Patterson in a victory the New York Times called “stunning” in upholding the appointment of Richard Ravitch as Lieutenant Governor. She has litigated numerous other civil rights, criminal, immigration, and voting rights matters on a pro bono basis.
Faith earned her J.D. from the Northwestern University School of Law, where she serves on the Law Board Executive Committee and the Law Dean Search Committee. She is a Trustee of the Public Theater, a member of the American Law Institute, and serves as a board member of the American Constitution Society, Campaign Legal Center, the Clark Foundation, and Union Theological Seminary. In 2017, she earned an M.Div at Yale Divinity School.