Anton Ditchev

Anton Ditchev is a New York criminal defense attorney who spent fifteen years as a public defender with The Legal Aid Society before beginning to open his own firm, Ditchev Law PLLC, in September 2026. He views those years of public defense as a form of service. Over the course of his career, Anton Ditchev has represented clients in parole hearings, administrative proceedings, and criminal cases ranging from misdemeanors to major felonies, including weapons charges and attempted murder. Ditchev began at The Legal Aid Society in 2011, in the Parole Revocation Defense Unit. His clients were people on community supervision facing re-incarceration, and he represented them at hearings at the Rikers Island judicial center. He took part in every stage of the revocation process, including investigations, witness interviews, case conferences, plea negotiations, writs of habeas corpus, motions, and administrative appeals. He also worked with social workers to identify clients with special needs and to develop alternatives to incarceration. Handling hearings inside a locked-down detention center as a young attorney, some involving serious criminal charges, taught him to think on his feet. In 2014, he transferred to the Trial Practice in New York County. In Manhattan, he managed a full caseload, handled trial strategy, motions, discovery, investigations, and witness preparation, and tried multiple cases to verdict. His work also extended beyond the criminal case itself, as he helped clients with collateral consequences involving employment, housing, and immigration. In 2017, Anton Ditchev became a Senior Trial Attorney in the Queens County Trial Practice. He represented clients from arrest through plea or verdict in felony and misdemeanor cases, including attempted murder and felony assault cases tried to jury verdict. He litigated suppression hearings and DNA evidence, drafted omnibus motions, motions to dismiss, and motions to controvert search warrants, and prepared witnesses for the grand jury. He also handled civil forfeiture proceedings and OATH, Krimstock, and DMV refusal hearings. In addition to his own caseload, he helped train and mentor junior attorneys and taught Continuing Legal Education (CLE) classes. In the past year, Ditchev took three felony weapons charges to trial. Two ended in acquittals, and the third ended in a mistrial, after which the client was offered a favorable plea. Many of his clients have faced difficult circumstances, including mental health and substance use issues. He has provided dedicated representation regardless of those circumstances. He has had no disciplinary complaints during his career, which he attributes to treating his clients with dignity and respect. Ditchev entered Brooklyn Law School in 2007. There, he took part in the Capital Defender Federal Habeas Clinic and helped draft and file a federal habeas petition in a capital case from Alabama. He represented claimants through the Unemployment Action Center and mentored high school students in a moot court program. He also worked for the Law Office of David Fainkich and spent a summer studying in Bologna, Italy. After earning his Juris Doctor in 2010, he worked briefly as an investigator-lawyer for Casale Associates, a boutique private investigation firm. Before law school, he studied philosophy at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, writing his thesis on Wittgenstein and his early works and graduating in 2005. He played upright and electric bass, and after college he played in a band called Monroe with high school friends, performing mostly in Northern California, Reno, and Las Vegas. Ditchev was born in Bulgaria in 1983, when the country was communist. His parents, Dimo and Dora, grew up in villages and were well educated and ambitious. In 1991, after communism fell, his father received a NATO grant to conduct research at Cornell University, and the family, including his three-year-old sister, moved to Ithaca, New York. He was seven and spoke little English, and he has said the experience of being a young immigrant shaped how he sees the world. The family later moved to Reno, Nevada, where he worked as a snowboard instructor at Mount Rose Ski Resort, spent time in the Sierra Nevada and around Lake Tahoe, and sometimes spent summers with relatives in Bulgaria. He graduated with honors from McQueen High School in 2001.