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David Rudolf is the American criminal defence attorney who led Michael Peterson’s defence in the North Carolina murder case chronicled in the documentary series The Staircase, and later
David Rudolf is the American criminal defence attorney who led Michael Peterson’s defence in the North Carolina murder case chronicled in the documentary series The Staircase, and later played by Michael Stuhlbarg in HBO’s 2022 dramatisation. He’s a working defence lawyer with Rudolf Widenhouse in North Carolina, was born on 2 July 1949, and has spent more than five decades in criminal and civil rights litigation, of which the Peterson case was only the most publicised chapter.
If you’ve watched either version of The Staircase and want to know more about the real David Rudolf, here’s what’s documented about his career, his other notable cases, and where he stands today.
David Rudolf was born on 2 July 1949 in Hewlett, on Long Island, New York, and grew up in what several profiles describe as an upper middle class household. He earned a Bachelor of Arts from Rutgers University in 1971, graduating summa cum laude, and went on to study at the London School of Economics before completing a Juris Doctor at New York University School of Law in 1974.
His early career started in public defence work rather than private practice. He served as a public defender in the South Bronx before moving to Brooklyn to try federal criminal cases at the Federal Defender office, grounding him in defence work for people who couldn’t otherwise afford top representation. In 1978, he started a criminal law clinic at the University of North Carolina School of Law, and in 1982 he founded his own firm with a colleague from Duke Law School, the firm that became Rudolf Widenhouse.
Searches for “david rudolf wikipedia” or “david rudolf wiki” are usually looking for a quick factual summary rather than the full Wikipedia page itself, so here’s the condensed version.
That list covers what’s consistently reported across legal directories and news profiles, rather than the more speculative “net worth” or personal detail claims you’ll find on some biography sites, which this article won’t repeat without a reliable source behind them.
David Rudolf was born on 2 July 1949, which puts him at 77 years old as of July 2026. Several profiles note that he doesn’t particularly celebrate his birthday personally, though it’s marked by his wife each year on the day itself.
This is the case that made Rudolf a household name well beyond North Carolina legal circles. In December 2001, novelist Michael Peterson made two 911 calls saying his wife, Kathleen Peterson, had fallen down the stairs of their Durham, North Carolina home. Her injuries didn’t match a simple fall in the eyes of prosecutors, and Peterson was charged with first-degree murder.
Rudolf was brought onto the case within about a week of Kathleen’s death, hired through a referral from Peterson’s brother, Bill Peterson, who was also a lawyer. Rudolf has said publicly, including in his own writing, that after his firm’s investigation he believed Peterson had nothing to do with Kathleen’s death, and that he still holds that view decades later.
The original trial ran for roughly five months and ended in 2003 with Peterson convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole. Part of the prosecution’s case involved a separate, unresolved 1985 death of a family friend, Elizabeth Ratliff, who died in strikingly similar circumstances, though Peterson was never charged over her death. Rudolf has described the loss as one of the lowest points of his career, saying he didn’t feel he’d fully recovered until years later, when a retrial was secured.
Rudolf filed the motions that led to a 2011 order for a retrial, built around evidence that a key prosecution witness, blood spatter analyst Duane Deaver, had given unreliable testimony. Deaver was subsequently fired from the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation in 2011 over allegations of false testimony in multiple cases, which significantly undermined the original conviction.
Rudolf left Peterson’s defence team in 2014, before returning in 2017 for the case’s resolution. Peterson ultimately entered an Alford plea, a plea that allows a defendant to maintain innocence while acknowledging prosecutors have enough evidence to convict, and was released having already served the bulk of his sentence.
The Staircase brought Rudolf international recognition, but he’d already built a substantial career in high-profile criminal defence before that case, and has continued taking on notable work since.
He represented former NFL player Rae Carruth, whose case drew heavy national media coverage in its own right. More broadly, Rudolf has focused throughout his career on complex civil litigation, white collar criminal defence, civil rights cases and wrongful conviction work, the kind of cases that rarely make headlines individually but form the backbone of a working defence career.
In January 2022, he published American Injustice: Inside Stories from the Underbelly of the Criminal Justice System, a non-fiction account drawing on decades of case work to examine misconduct and wrongful convictions within the American legal system. He also co-hosts a criminal justice podcast, Abuse of Power, alongside his wife, Sonya Pfeiffer.
Yes. As of the most recent reporting, Rudolf remains an active defence attorney. He and Sonya Pfeiffer relocated to Toronto, Canada, in 2021, obtaining work permits and settling in the Hoggs Hollow neighbourhood, while working with the Canadian firm Brauti Thorning LLP. He’s remained affiliated with his North Carolina practice throughout, now operating under the Rudolf Widenhouse name, alongside his newer Canadian legal work.
David Rudolf is married to Sonya Pfeiffer, an attorney and former award-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker who later became a criminal defence lawyer herself and joined Rudolf’s firm. The two also work together on the Abuse of Power podcast, discussing criminal justice issues drawn from their combined legal and journalism backgrounds.
Rudolf has been fairly candid in interviews about his mixed feelings on the various screen versions of his most famous case. Speaking to the Los Angeles Times back in 2005 about the original documentary series, he described watching it as an emotionally difficult experience, saying it put him back in the middle of events he already knew ended badly for his client. When HBO’s 2022 dramatisation, starring Colin Firth as Peterson and Michael Stuhlbarg as Rudolf himself, was released, reports suggested Rudolf wasn’t entirely comfortable with the fictionalised treatment of events he’d lived through directly.
That tension between a lawyer’s lived experience of a case and its dramatised retelling is a fairly common thread through true crime adaptations generally, and Rudolf’s own comments over the years give a useful, first hand perspective on that gap.
David Rudolf is an American criminal defence attorney best known for representing novelist Michael Peterson in the murder case documented in The Staircase. He’s practised law for more than five decades and founded the firm Rudolf Widenhouse in 1982.
David Rudolf was born on 2 July 1949, making him 77 years old as of July 2026.
Yes. He’s a licensed, practising attorney based originally in North Carolina and now also working with a Canadian firm, Brauti Thorning LLP, having relocated to Toronto with his wife in 2021.
Not outright. Peterson was convicted in 2003, but Rudolf secured a retrial in 2011 after undermining key prosecution evidence, and the case ultimately resolved in 2017 with Peterson entering an Alford plea and being released.
Beyond the Peterson case, he’s represented former NFL player Rae Carruth and worked extensively in civil rights litigation and wrongful conviction cases throughout his career, alongside writing the book American Injustice in 2022.
Yes, he remains an active defence attorney, working between his long-standing North Carolina firm, Rudolf Widenhouse, and a Canadian firm since relocating to Toronto in 2021.
He’s married to Sonya Pfeiffer, an attorney and former journalist who joined his law firm and co-hosts the criminal justice podcast Abuse of Power with him.
He earned his Bachelor of Arts from Rutgers University in 1971, studied at the London School of Economics, and completed his law degree at New York University School of Law in 1974.
