Legal Malpractice Allegedly To Blame For Conviction Of Turkish Immigrant

Case Overview

This case involves a Turkish national with a green card who plead guilty to a theft crime. When she returned from traveling, she was given deferred inspection upon arriving at the airport. The plaintiff immediately hired an attorney to defend her against deportation, but the attorney failed to attend to the case by not appearing in court on the assigned date and not communicating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement on the plaintiff’s behalf. An arrest warrant for the plaintiff was subsequently served at her residence in front of her children and she spent two years in jail. An immigration attorney familiar with deportation procedure and deferred action was sought to help determine if there was a basis for a legal malpractice case against the plaintiff’s prior attorney.

Questions to the Immigration expert and their responses

Have you successfully defended clients in analogous situations?

I have been a professor for 22 years at a top law school and coauthored a legal research casebook. I have testified in three or four cases formally and many more informally. Theft crimes are difficult to defend in immigration cases. But the circumstances of the conviction are also relevant. Was the plaintiff thoroughly advised at the time of the plea? The plaintiff might have a claim against criminal defense counsel too.

Could you describe the importance of deferred action in such cases?

Deferred action is important as a means of discretion to keep a family together or for humanitarian basis but I wonder why the plaintiff traveled. She should have known she was at grave risk. She was lucky not to be detained at the time of reentry. I would need to know more about the departure, length of absence, and reason for going. I would also need more information on the plaintiff's family and the basis of hardship if removed. It would be important to see any retainer agreement between the original attorney and the plaintiff to be sure they, in fact, had an agreement.

About the expert

This highly qualified expert has been an immigration lawyer for over 30 years. She serves on several city, state and national task forces devoted to expand resources for immigrants, especially unaccompanied migrant children. From 2012 to 2015 she was the Chair of the Immigration and Nationality Law Committee for the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. In 2011-2012 she served as a consultant/researcher for the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS). With Russell Wheeler of the Brookings Institution, she prepared a comprehensive report on ways to improve removal adjudication and that report resulted in a formal adoption of over thirty-eight recommendations by ACUS. She is the past chair of the AALS Immigration Law Section and past immigration committee chair for the ABA Section on Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice. Prior to joining academia, she practiced immigration law as a partner in the Los Angeles office of Bryan Cave, LLP. She is a native Arizonan and earned her law degree at the Arizona State College of Law in 1983. She has been an adjunct professor at Columbia teaching both immigration law and a seminar on refugee law. She has been teaching and writing in the field of immigration law since 1994. She is a professor at prestigious Law School and serves as the director of their Safe Passage Project. The Project recruits, trains and mentors lawyers and student volunteers who are willing to represent immigrant youth and has won state and national awards for its promotion and support of pro bono work. She also teaches a clinic of advanced students who join other Safe Passage volunteers to screen immigrant youth at the New York Immigration Court each week. She is a national and international speaker on immigration topics.

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Specialties:

Immigration

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