Anton Ditchev Attorney and Founder of Ditchev Law PLLC Anton Ditchev is a New York trial attorney and the founder of Ditchev Law PLLC. Most recently a Senior Trial Attorney with The Legal Aid Society, he has fifteen years of experience in criminal defense and administrative hearings. His background spans parole revocation defense, felony and misdemeanor trial practice in Manhattan and Queens, and a range of administrative proceedings. Anton Ditchev is also working to establish the New York Bulgarian-American Bar Association, which he notes would be the first such association in the nation.
Areas of Experience In criminal court, Ditchev has represented clients charged with misdemeanors and major felonies, including weapons charges, felony assault, and attempted murder, from arrest through plea or verdict. His trial work has included suppression hearings, DNA evidence, and grand jury witness preparation, along with motion practice that covers omnibus motions, motions to dismiss, and motions to controvert search warrants. In administrative settings, he has handled parole revocation hearings, civil forfeiture proceedings, OATH hearings, Krimstock hearings, and DMV refusal hearings. He has also helped clients address the collateral consequences of criminal cases, including employment, housing, and immigration matters.
Professional Experience Anton Ditchev joined The Legal Aid Society in 2011 as a staff attorney in the Parole Revocation Defense Unit. He represented people on community supervision facing re-incarceration at hearings at the Rikers Island judicial center, handling investigations, witness interviews, case conferences, plea negotiations, writs of habeas corpus, motions, and administrative appeals. He worked with social workers to identify clients with special needs and develop alternatives to incarceration. He has said that handling hearings in a locked-down detention center as a young attorney taught him to think on his feet. From 2014, he served as a staff attorney in the Trial Practice in New York County, where he managed a full caseload in Manhattan, oversaw trial strategy, discovery, investigations, and witness preparation, and tried multiple cases to verdict. In 2017, he moved to the Queens County Trial Practice as a Senior Trial Attorney. In that role, he tried attempted murder and felony assault cases to jury verdict, litigated suppression hearings and DNA evidence, and prepared witnesses for the grand jury. He also helped train and mentor junior attorneys and taught Continuing Legal Education (CLE) classes. In September 2026, he began opening his own practice, Ditchev Law PLLC.
Trial Results and Professional Standing 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 mental health and substance use issues, and he has provided them with dedicated representation regardless of their circumstances. He has had no disciplinary complaints during his career, which he attributes to treating clients with dignity and respect.
Education Ditchev earned his Juris Doctor from Brooklyn Law School in 2010. As a student, he participated in the Capital Defender Federal Habeas Clinic, where he helped draft and file a federal habeas petition in a capital case from Alabama. He also represented claimants through the Unemployment Action Center, mentored high school students in a moot court program, and worked for the Law Office of David Fainkich. He spent a summer studying abroad in Bologna, Italy. After graduation, he worked briefly as an investigator-lawyer for Casale Associates, a boutique private investigation firm. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from Reed College in Portland, Oregon, where he wrote his thesis on Wittgenstein and his early works and graduated in 2005. He graduated with honors from McQueen High School in Reno, Nevada, in 2001.
Background Anton Ditchev was born in 1983 in Bulgaria, then a communist country. His parents, Dimo and Dora, came from villages and were well educated and ambitious. In 1991, after the fall of communism, his father received a NATO grant to conduct research at Cornell University, and the family moved to Ithaca, New York. Ditchev was seven, his sister was three, and he spoke a little English. He has said the culture shock of that move, and his experience as a young immigrant, shaped how he sees the world. The family soon settled in Reno, where Ditchev spent time in the Sierra Nevada and around Lake Tahoe and worked as a snowboard instructor at Mount Rose Ski Resort. Some summers, he spent months with relatives in Bulgaria. He played upright and electric bass, and after college he played with high school friends in a band called Monroe, performing mostly in Northern California, Reno, and Las Vegas.
Personal Life and Community Ditchev met his wife, Celena Rodriguez, in 2014 while working at Rikers Island. They married in May 2015 and are raising four children at their home on Long Island. He volunteers as a coach with his local soccer club, where he has coached many intramural teams and the U9 travel team and currently coaches the U13 team. He has volunteered with other local organizations, and his family has been active in Scouting. The family supports their parish, Our Lady of Victory in Floral Park, as well as St. Gregory the Great in New York, and donates to the Salvation Army each year. His interests include camping, backpacking, hiking, basketball, running and fitness, and jazz. Each summer, the family camps at a beachside campground in eastern Long Island, and they travel to Reno to visit his parents and ski and to San Diego to visit his sister and surf. Anton Ditchev, attorney, views his fifteen years as a public defender as a form of service.