Emery was part of New York Governor Mario Cuomo's State Commission on Government Integrity in the late 1980s.

One of Emery's most notable cases at the firm was a lawsuit charging that the New York City Board of Estimate violated the principle of "one person, one vote" by granting the Staten Island Borough President, who represented fewer than 400,000 people, the same power as the Brooklyn Borough President, who represented more than two million.

In 1989, Emery won the case, arguing in the U.S. Supreme Court and achieving the invalidation of the Board on one person-one vote constitutional grounds.

[2][5] In 1996, Emery represented Laurance Rockefeller, Jr. and presidential candidate Steve Forbes in their bids to gain ballot access.

[10] In November 2006, newly elected Governor of New York Eliot Spitzer appointed Emery to his Transition Committee for Government Reform Issues.

After Spitzer resigned in March 2008, Governor David Paterson appointed Emery to the New York State Commission on Public Integrity.

[11] In 2010, Emery won a civil rights lawsuit over strip searches performed on non-violent, low-level offenders at the Rikers Island jail facility.

Emery represented Roger Clemens' trainer in a defamation lawsuit about steroid use and Duke lacrosse player Reade Seligmann in a civil suit for wrongful prosecution.