Agnieszka Fryszman

Some of Ms. Fryszman’s Current high-profile cases include:

• ExxonMobil -Villagers of Aceh Litigation (D.D.C.): Ms. Fryszman represents eleven villagers from Aceh, Indonesia, who allege that they or their relatives were victims of torture, extrajudicial killing, and other abuses committed by security guards working for Exxon Mobil. The case is being heard in a United States court but involves claims under Indonesian law.  The case has been hotly litigated for 20 years, including two trips to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals (both successfully argued by Ms. Fryszman).  Ms. Fryszman pioneered the use of remote deposition technology to take over 20 depositions of eyewitnesses located in rural Aceh. The parties are currently awaiting a trial date.
• Kurd v. The Republic of Turkey (D.D.C.): Ms. Fryszman represents represent fifteen people, including a seven-year-old girl with her father, a mother pushing a four-year-old in a stroller, students, and local small business owners, who had gathered at Sheridan Circle in Washington, D.C., to peacefully protest the Erdogan regime’s treatment of its Kurdish community.  They were brutally attacked by President Erdogan’s security detail, who pushed past a line of law enforcement officers to kick, stomp and bludgeon the demonstrators.  The attack was captured on video, resulted in criminal indictments, and was condemned by the United States Congress.  The Republic of Turkey claimed it was immune from suit, but the district court disagreed.  Ms. Fryszman successfully argued the case at the Court of Appeals, obtaining a unanimous opinion upholding the district court.
• Ratha v. Phatthana Seafood (C.D. Cal.): Ms. Fryszman represents Cambodian villagers who allege that they were trafficked into Thailand and subjected to forced labor at seafood processing factories that were owned by and did business with U.S. business entities.
• Paul Rusesabagina Kidnapping (D.D.C.): Ms. Fryszman represented U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom winner Paul Rusesabagina and his family against the Republic of Rwanda, the President of Rwanda and other members of the government for allegedly kidnapping Paul and taking him back to Rwanda, where he was imprisoned, tortured and subjected to a sham trial.  Mr. Rusesabagina is perhaps best known for saving thousands of lives during the Rwandan genocide in 1994, a story that inspired the Academy-Award-nominated film, Hotel Rwanda. On March 16, 2023, the court held that three Rwandan officials must face Plaintiffs' claims. A week later, after negotiations with the White House, Rwanda commuted Rusesabagina’s sentence. After two-and-a-half years in captivity, he returned home to the United States.

Ms. Fryszman has received some of the legal profession’s highest honors including The Human Trafficking Legal Center’s Human Trafficking Advocate of the Year Award (2020), and being named a "Lawdragon Legend" in 2019, an award highlighting 30 of the “nation’s elite lawyers.”  She is regularly included in the Lawdragon 500 and Lawdragon also named Ms. Fryszman to its inaugural “Global Litigation 500.”  The National Law Journal has named Ms. Fryszman to the list of “Elite Women of the Plaintiffs Bar” and Benchmark Plaintiff has named her a Leading Star Plaintiffs’ Litigator and one of the Top 150 Women in Litigation. For her pro bono work, in addition to the National Law Journal Pro Bono Award, she has been awarded the Beacon of Justice Award by the National Legal Aid and Defender and the Frederick Douglass Human Rights Award from the Southern Center for Human Rights. She was also a finalist for the Public Justice Foundation's Trial Lawyer of the Year Award for her work on Wiwa v. Royal Dutch Shell.  Ms. Fryszman joined the legal team in that case to prepare it for trial, resulting in a multi-million-dollar settlement on the morning of jury selection.

Prior to joining Cohen Milstein, Ms. Fryszman served as counsel to the United States House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law, and as counsel to Representative Henry Waxman, Ranking Member on the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee. Earlier in her career, she was legislative director to U.S. Representative, now Senator, Jack Reed.

Ms. Fryszman graduated from Brown University with an A.B. in International Relations, and earned her law degree from Georgetown University Law Center, graduating magna cum laude, Order of the Coif. In law school, she was a Public Interest Law Scholar.