Ralph DeSimone Ralph DeSimone is founder and senior partner of DeSimone, Aviles, Shorter & Oxamendi, LLP. A trial attorney, he represents clients in matters involving entertainment law, high-profile personal injury cases, medical malpractice, civil rights violations, employment disputes, and corporate and insurance defense. Throughout his distinguished career, Mr. DeSimone has served as lead trial attorney in an impressive number of high-profile cases and has achieved multi-million dollar settlements for numerous clients. He was the lead attorney representing 24 families who lost loved ones in the airline crash of American Airlines Flight 587, the second deadliest air disaster in U.S. history.

• He achieved an EIGHT MILLION DOLLAR settlement, one of the highest awards ever for an individual against a municipality in New York State. Mr. DeSimone represented the owner of Long Island's Oak Beach Inn against the Town of Babylon. The case, which had dragged on for 20 years, was settled within eight months after Mr. DeSimone took it over.
• Before starting his boutique litigation practice, Mr. DeSimone headed his former World Trade Center firm’s Litigation Department as managing attorney and lead trial attorney. He led a team of lawyers in prosecuting and defending actions involving national securities firms and their brokers throughout the United States, having appeared as lead trial counsel in over 20 states.
• He has successfully prosecuted police abuse matters on behalf of individuals who have suffered paralysis, brain damage and death as a consequence of improper police actions such as the exercise of excessive force, improper arrest and unauthorized high speed chase tactics.
• At his previous firm, he was solely responsible for building the entertainment litigation practice, addressing such issues as copyright infringement and breach of contract on behalf of such clients as Missy Elliott and Earl “DMX” Simmons.
• He exposed and received a substantial award from a prominent hospital and its doctors on behalf of a medical malpractice victim who had coronary bypass surgery performed upon the wrong coronary artery which was subsequently covered up by the hospital.

Astute in his analyses, meticulous in preparation and passionate when he embraces a cause, Mr. DeSimone always aims for the best possible resolution for his client. “Our mission is to aggressively provide creative solutions to clients' short and long term issues, and, always, to see justice served,” he says. While his client list includes national companies, well-known music artists and distinguished business leaders, Mr. DeSimone is particularly drawn to people “who may not have a voice, but have been seriously injured or suffered significant damages.”

Early in his career, at the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, Mr. DeSimone worked with lead Unibomber prosecutor Robert Cleary on a number of complex white-collar and multinational cases. He also worked as an assistant district attorney in the Kings County D.A. Office, responsible for all stages of criminal prosecution of crimes such as murder, rape and robbery.
Mr. DeSimone is admitted to practice law in New York and New Jersey, the U.S. District Courts for the Northern, Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, and the U.S. District Court for New Jersey. He has appeared as counsel in state and federal district courts in over 20 states.

He is a member of the Air and Space Law Forum of the American Bar Association and a member of the ABA’s Litigation Section. He is also a member of the New York State Bar Association. He has also served as an on-air legal consultant on the television show Celebrity Justice.

He received his J.D from Brooklyn Law School, as a Dean’s Merit Scholar, in 1994 and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania in 1991.