Litigating Police Failure-to-Train and Other Claims Against Local-Governmental Entities Under Monell

David Rudovsky, Founding Partner | Kairys, Rudovsky, Messing, Feinberg & Lin LLP

David Rudovsky is a founding partner of Kairys, Rudovsky, Messing, Feinberg & Lin LLP in Philadelphia, where he has practiced civil-rights and criminal-defense law for more than forty years. His caseload has centered on police and governmental misconduct, prisoners’ rights, First Amendment freedoms, and racial discrimination — including two civil-rights arguments before the United States Supreme Court, among them City of Canton v. Harris, the decision that defines municipal liability for police training failures.

• Education & Credentials

Mr. Rudovsky earned his LL.B. from New York University School of Law in 1967, where he was a Fellow in the Arthur Garfield Hays Civil Liberties Program, and his B.A. from Queens College, City University of New York, in 1964.

• Recognition & Leadership

In 1986 he received a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship for his work in criminal justice. The Philadelphia Bar Foundation has honored him with the Judge Gerald F. Flood Award for public-interest accomplishments, and he has received the ACLU Civil Liberties Award and the Philadelphia Bar Association’s Cesare Beccaria Award for criminal justice.

• Professional Involvement

Since 1987, Mr. Rudovsky has been a Senior Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, teaching Constitutional Criminal Procedure, Criminal Law, and Evidence. He serves as President of the Board of Directors of the Defender Association of Philadelphia and Vice President of the Board of the Pennsylvania Innocence Project. He is the author of the practice treatises Police Misconduct: Law & Litigation and The Law of Arrest, Search and Seizure in Pennsylvania, along with numerous scholarly articles on civil rights and the criminal justice system.

• Experience

Mr. Rudovsky argued two significant civil-rights cases in the United States Supreme Court: Mitchell v. Forsyth (1985), on the immunity of the Attorney General for illegal electronic surveillance, and City of Canton v. Harris (1989), on municipal liability for civil-rights violations by police. He has prepared numerous amicus briefs in Supreme Court civil-rights cases and argued scores of civil-rights and criminal-law matters in the federal and state courts.

Subodh Chandra, Founder and Managing Partner | The Chandra Law Firm LLC Subodh Chandra is the founding and managing partner of The Chandra Law Firm LLC

in Cleveland, Ohio. A former federal prosecutor and former Director of Law for the City of Cleveland, he concentrates on high-profile civil-rights litigation, white-collar criminal defense, and internal investigations, and is regularly engaged for high-stakes matters with public-policy and crisis-communications dimensions.

• Education & Credentials

Mr. Chandra earned his J.D. from Yale Law School in 1994, where he served as executive editor of the Yale Law & Policy Review, and graduated from Stanford University in 1989 with honors and distinction in two departments, receiving the John Gardner Fellowship. He is admitted to practice in Ohio, California, and New Mexico (inactive), and in federal courts around the country.

• Recognition & Leadership

Mr. Chandra was named the 2022 Lawyer of the Year in Civil Rights by Best Lawyers® in America and has been peer-review included in Best Lawyers® in America for civil rights and in Ohio Super Lawyers®. As a federal prosecutor he received a commendation from FBI Director Robert Mueller for demonstrated excellence, along with a special commendation from the Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Cleveland office. Under his leadership, Chandra Law has been included in U.S. News & World Report’s Best Law Firms in America for civil rights.

• Professional Involvement

Mr. Chandra serves as co-vice chair of the Special Ohio Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights and as a member of the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association’s Judicial Selection Committee. He has served as Distinguished Practitioner in Residence at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, teaching appellate practice and legal ethics, and has served as a legal-ethics and attorneys’-fees expert in litigation.

• Experience

Mr. Chandra’s civil-rights matters include representing the family of 12-year-old Tamir Rice in the police-shooting case that resulted in a $6,000,000 settlement, obtaining nearly $1,000,000 in settlements for 2016 Republican National Convention protestors, and litigating voting-rights challenges to voter-suppression schemes in Ohio. As Cleveland’s Director of Law and Prosecuting Attorney (2002–05), he led an 82-lawyer department with criminal and civil divisions and at times served as acting mayor. He previously served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney (1999–2002), prosecuting healthcare fraud, corruption, and economic crimes, and in 2021 was the principal author, on behalf of police-misconduct victims’ families, of the Cleveland charter amendment establishing greater civilian disciplinary and policy oversight of police.

SESSION 1 – Pleading and Proving the Monell Failure-to-Train Claim | 1:00pm – 2:00pm

This session examines how plaintiffs plead and prove failure-to-train claims against municipalities under Monell v. Department of Social Services, with particular focus on the Supreme Court’s unanimous 2025 decision in Barnes v. Felix and its impact on the totality-of-circumstances framework. Attendees will learn the four required elements, the deliberate indifference standard, pattern versus single-incident proof strategies, and the most common pleading failures that doom these claims at the Rule 12(b)(6) stage. Attorneys will leave with a working framework for drafting constitutionally adequate complaints, identifying discoverable training deficiencies, and anticipating defense arguments on causation and the moving-force element.

BREAK | 2:00pm – 2:10pm

SESSION 2 – Trial Strategy and Damages in Failure-to-Train Cases | 2:10pm – 3:10pm

This session equips plaintiff’s attorneys with the trial-level strategy to litigate a Monell failure-to-train case from pretrial motions through verdict and damages. Attendees will learn how Barnes v. Felix reshapes the trial narrative, how to defeat bifurcation motions, how to marshal causation evidence and expert testimony, and how to structure a damages case against a municipality. Attorneys leave with a working framework for jury instructions, verdict form strategy, and preserving the standalone municipal claim.