As a crowded field of candidates lines up to challenge Mayor Eric Adams, we're breaking down key information about the contenders before you cast your vote this year. 

Voting resources

Name: Jim Walden 

Age: 59 

Party: Independent 

Race: New York City mayor 

Background: Walden grew up in Levittown, Pennsylvania, before attending Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, and Temple University Law School in Philadelphia. 

Walden then worked as a criminal prosecutor for the U.S. Department of Justice, serving as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York. During that time, he focused on organized crime, with his investigations leading to dozens of convictions and solutions to many cold cases.

For the past two decades, Walden has spent his career as an attorney in private practice, founding his own firm — Walden Macht Haran & Williams LLP — in 2015. The firm is focused on “white collar defense and investigations, complex commercial disputes, monitorships, and corporate compliance.” 

Walden has led lawsuits against the city Department of Education, representing a group of students that alleged the department did not do enough to prevent bullying, and against NYCHA, representing public housing residents who claimed NYCHA failed to protect them against toxic lead, provide heat or hot water during winter, and demanding an independent monitor be imposed to oversee the agency.

In 2011, Walden represented Park Slope residents opposed to the construction of a bike lane along Prospect Park West, now one of the most used bike lanes in the city. In 2018, Walden filed a suit on behalf of the District Attorneys Association of the State of New York, naming former Gov. Andrew Cuomo as a defendant for a law he signed to create an oversight panel to probe accusations of prosecutorial misconduct. 

Policy proposals include: 

  • Increase the police force
  • Construct more than 50,000 new units of housing per year, and accelerate affordable housing
  • Make the city carbon neutral, and enhance public transportation 

More of Jim Walden’s platform can be found on his campaign website.

Interviews: 

Attorney makes pitch to voters as only independent in mayoral race

Attorney Jim Walden discusses bid for mayor

Here is Walden’s X profile.

Here is Walden’s campaign website.