John Low-Beer

John Low-Beer is of Counsel at Kirby McInerney LLP, where he has represented plaintiffs in class actions and whistleblower litigation including Tyngsboro Sports II Solar, LLC v. Nat’l Grid USA Services Co., Case No. 1:22-cv-11791 (D. Mass.) (ongoing litigation challenging fees on independent solar generation), and State of New York ex rel. Banerjee v. Moody's Corp., 165 A.D.3d 19 (1st Dep’t 2018) (successful claim re taxation of captive insurance company).

Separately, Mr. Low-Beer has a robust pro bono and "low bono" practice, primarily representing community groups and civic organizations in land use cases including Avella v. City of New York, 29 N.Y.3d 967 (2017) (invalidating a plan to build a shopping mall on parkland in Queens), Howard v. 1919 Bedford Realty, LLC, Index No. 507391/2022 (upholding covenant protecting National Register property in Lefferts Manor, Brooklyn), and Peyton v. New York City Board of Standards and Appeals, 36 N.Y.3d 271 (2020) (4-3 decision reversing 1st Dept.’s holding that rooftop garden of a luxury building in Manhattan could not be counted as "open space" within the meaning of the Zoning Resolution).

Mr. Low-Beer was formerly a Senior Counsel in the Affirmative Litigation Division of the NYC Law Dep’t, where he was lead attorney on complex and highly publicized matters, including litigation concerning City taxation of consular and U.N. mission staff housing, a successful challenge to New York State’s misallocation of $750 million in federal stimulus funding, a lawsuit forcing the Governor to implement State takeover of $2.5 billion in City debt, and cases against more than 40 pharmaceutical companies recovering $240 million.

Mr. Low-Beer has a B.A. from Brown University, a Ph.D. from Harvard University, and a J.D. from Yale Law School. He clerked for Judge Leonard Garth on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Previous to that, he was Associate Professor at York College, CUNY, and Assistant Professor at Yale School of Management and Department of Sociology. He is the author of a book, Protest and Participation (Cambridge University Press 1978), a prize-winning note in the Yale L.J., "The Constitutional Imperative of Proportional Representation," and numerous articles, including "Why Community Groups Can Never Win Against Developers," NYLJ Sept. 19, 2019.