Steven T. Wax


Steven T. Wax was a U.S. federal Public Defender for the United States [District Court for the District of Oregon|District of Oregon] in Portland, Oregon. Wax resigned in 2014 from his position after 31 years and now works with the Oregon Innocence Project.
He is admitted to the U.S. District Court for districts of United States District Court for the [Southern District of New York|Southern] and Eastern New York, the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the United States [Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit|Second] and Ninth Circuit|Ninth] circuits, and the U.S. Supreme Court.
Wax earned a B.A. cum laude from Colgate University in 1970 and a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1974. He has been a member of the Oregon State Bar since 1983 and is also a member of the New York State Bar. He started in 1979 as an Assistant District Attorney in Brooklyn, New York and became the Public Defender in Broome County, New York from 1979 through 1983. He was an adjunct professor at Lewis & Clark Law School from 1985 through 1993 and in 2001.
Wax is married to Kathleen Haley, the Executive Director of the Oregon Medical Board.

Notable work

Wax defended several of the List of [Guantanamo Bay detainees|detainees of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp]. His Oregon office worked for Brandon Mayfield when he was arrested due to being erroneously linked with the 2004 Madrid train bombings by the FBI.
Wax wrote a book on the defense of Adel Hassan Hamad and Brandon Mayfield.

Awards