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She is also a former federal prosecutor, serving as 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, Faith has devoted significant professional time to public interest litigation.
Raised in rural Georgia and a resident of New York City, Faith is comfortable in courtrooms everywhere.
Chambers ranks 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.
Her defense of the company resulted in the DOJ withdrawing its public announcement of an investigation and resolving the matter for civil penalties alone.
The Daily Journal commended Faith’s leadership in the firm’s public interest litigations, noting the numerous victories on behalf of NYC tenants earlier this year and class action victory for public servants over a student loan servicer that allegedly failed in its obligation to help with reduced payment plans.
Read Faith's profile here.
Faith Gay – 2025 Robert M.
Kaufman Award Honoree
Faith Gay is a founding partner at Selendy Gay.
In a nationally recognized career spanning four decades, Faith has been lead counsel in dozens of high-stakes jury trials and has successfully navigated bet-the-company crises and investigations for scores of Fortune 500 companies, C-suite executives, and government agencies and officials.
Faith also obtained a complete reversal of a woman’s conviction and mandatory 20-year sentence for firing a warning shot at her serially abusive spouse.
Faith was an A.B. Duke Scholar at Duke University, and earned her J.D. from the Northwestern University School of Law, where she now serves on the Law Board Executive Committee. She is a Trustee of the Public Theater, a member of the American Law Institute, and serves on the boards of Bassett Medical Center, the Campaign Legal Center and the Clark Foundation.
She currently represents New York Governor Kathy Hochul in a variety of matters, and 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 also earned an M.Div.
Faith Gay
Faith Gay is a founding partner of the Selendy Gay law firm, described by Northwestern University when honoring her this year as “an elite majority female-owned litigation firm in New York City.
This annual supplement highlights the nation’s best commercial and bet-the-company litigators.
The publication highlighted Faith’s current representation of New York Governor Kathy Hochul in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. In 2025, the Fund for Modern Courts recognized Faith with its Robert M.
Kaufman Memorial Award, and the Office of the Appellate Defender has presented Faith with the Gould Award for Outstanding Appellate Advocacy. Faith has long held a place on “best in class” elite litigator lists including Chambers, Forbes, Crain’s, Legal 500, Lawdragon, Benchmark, the Daily Journal, and scores of others.
Faith is a former supervisor in the Civil Rights and Special Prosecutions Units of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York.
Faith represents the Governor as a non-party in multi-district litigation brought by several state attorneys general against Meta for the social media giant’s negative impacts on teen mental health.
Faith’s accomplishments in California also include her recent representation of a California-based medical device company, subject to a U.S.
Department of Justice investigation. She twice received the Department of Justice Directors’ Award for excellence in trial litigation.
In her commercial practice, Faith focuses on complex contractual and financial disputes, securities, crypto and bankruptcy matters, intellectual property disputes, and consumer class actions. 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, E-Trade, Home Depot, MacAndrews & Forbes, McKinsey, Novartis, Nuance, Pfizer, Regeneron, Revlon, Sandoz, and Schwab.
In her white-collar and crisis management practice, Faith has represented corporations and high-profile individuals in investigations by the SEC, FINRA, DOJ, FDA, IRS, EPA, DOD, and numerous state attorneys general.
Since its inception in 2018, the firm has been lauded as an innovator in diversity, inclusion, training and public interest litigation.”
Prior to founding Selendy Gay, she co-chaired the trial practice at one of the nation's top litigation firms. Faith also represented a class of public service workers in obtaining unprecedented relief with respect to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.
She has led internal investigations at the request of corporations, boards of directors, and special committees. She has extensive experience in Board and Special Committee assignments, as well as representation of C-suite executives and high-net-worth individuals in corporate and family law matters.
from Yale Divinity School in 2019. Faith is a board member of Her Justice, a nonprofit organization that provides free legal help to women living in poverty in New York City. In 2019, Faith received an M.Div from Yale Divinity School, and is an ordained Presbyterian minister.
Faith Gay Named a 2024 Leading Commercial Litigator by Daily Journal
Selendy Gay founding partner Faith Gay was named a 2024 Leading Commercial Litigator by the Daily Journal, a Los Angeles legal publication.
The annual award honors the best commercial and bet-the-company litigators across the country.
The Daily Journal recognized Faith’s success in complex commercial matters, including representing a large private equity firm in Delaware Chancery Court, settling litigation to claw back stock options from a senior executive of a pharmaceutical company, and representing parties in some confidential disputes over law firm retirement programs.
The Daily Journal further commended Faith’s leadership in Selendy Gay’s public interest litigations, noting the firm’s current representations of eight Capitol police officers who were on duty during the January 6, 2021 riot; of New York Governor Kathy Hochul in matters related to the ongoing migrant crisis; of the American Federation of Teachers; and in challenging a few school districts that banned And Tango Makes Three, an award-winning children’s book about two male penguins creating a family.
Faith has also led trial teams in pathbreaking constitutional and public impact litigation.
Before founding Selendy Gay, Faith co-chaired the trial practice at one of the nation’s top litigation firms and was a highly respected federal prosecutor. She is a board member emeritus of the American Constitution Society and Union Theological Seminary. She’s incredibly responsive, unbelievably insightful, and her advice is always sound.” 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 was recently named a Litigation Trailblazer by the National Law Journal and a Lawdragon Legend.
She co-founded the American Immigration Representation Project to provide lawyers to immigrant detainees in response to new federal immigration and deportation policies, and has litigated numerous other civil rights, criminal, immigration and voting rights matters on a pro bono basis.
Faith earned her J.D. in 1986 from the Northwestern University School of Law, where she now serves on the Law Board.
She has served as a board member of the American Constitution Society, the National Center for Access to Justice, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and Union Theological Seminary.
Daily Journal Names Faith Gay “Leading Commercial Litigator”
Founding partner Faith Gay was named a “Leading Commercial Litigator” of 2025 by the Daily Journal, a prominent Los Angeles legal publication.