NY AILAApril 18CLE Panel
SPEAKER BIOS
Linda Kenepaske has been representing private and corporate clients in all aspects of immigration law in her New York City based practice for more than 25 years. Linda has served as chair and member of many local and national AILA committees, was previously Chair of the Immigration and Nationality Law Committee of the New York City Bar, serves on the Federal Bar Association Immigration Law Section Board, and lectures frequently on a variety of immigration topics. She is AV rated and has been selected as a “Super Lawyer” since 2009.
Cyrus D. Mehtais the managing partner of Cyrus D. Mehta & Partners PLLC in New York City, He represents corporations and individuals from around the world in a variety of immigration matters, including business, employment, and entrepreneur and investor immigration.Based on over 20 years of experience in immigration law, he is able to comprehend all kinds of problems and provide effective, ethical and strategic solutions to his clientsHe is an Adjunct Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School where he teaches a course, Immigration and Work.
Mr. Mehta is Chair of the American Immigration Lawyers Association’s (AILA) Ethics Committee and former Chair of its Pro Bono Committee. Heis a frequent speaker at the most prestigious conference on immigration law and is also the author of several influential articles on immigration topics, including ethics.Mr. Mehta serves as Special Counsel on immigration matters to the Departmental Disciplinary Committee, Appellate Division, First Department, New York. He also serves on the Board of Directors of Volunteers of Legal Services, Inc. Mr. Mehta is the recipient of AILA’sJoseph Minsky Young Lawyers Award for outstanding contributions in the immigration field (1997) as well as AILA’s Michael Maggio Memorial Award foroutstanding efforts in providing pro bono representation in the immigration field (2011).
Mr. Mehta is a former Chair of the Board of Trustees of the American Immigration Council (2004-2006), and Chair of the Committee on Immigration and Nationality Law (2000-2003) of the New York City Bar Association and Secretary of the same Association (2003-2007).He is also a member of the Alliance of Business Immigration Lawyers (ABIL),
Mr. Mehta graduated with a BA degree from St. Xavier's College, Bombay University, and subsequently obtained law degrees from Cambridge University, England (MA in Law), and Columbia Law School, New York (LL.M). In his spare time, Mr. Mehta plays the violin.
Deborah Klahrjoined the Newark Asylum Office located in Lyndhurst, NJ as an Asylum Officer in 2013 after more than 20 years as an attorney working in both private practice and for non-profit organizations. She is currently a Supervisory Asylum Officer and is responsible for supervising a team of Asylum Officers who interview and adjudicate affirmative asylum applications as well as credible fear/reasonable fear cases. Prior to joining the Newark Asylum Office, Ms. Klahr served as Counsel for Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook & Cooper, PC in Westfield, NJ where she represented business and family immigration clients. She previously had her own private practice after working for a boutique immigration firm in NYC. Ms. Klahr started her career at Legal Services for the Elderly in Queens and thereafter worked at the Pro Bono Project for the Bar Association of the City of New York. While in private practice in NJ, she also served as a member of the District XII Ethics Committee in New Jersey. She obtained her J.D. from Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in 1992.
Dan Smulianjoined the faculty of Brooklyn Law School in 2005. He co-directs theSafe Harbor Project, a legal clinic, in which students represent individuals in a range of cases affecting their immigration status and entitlements in the United States. He is also anEdward V. Sparer Public Interest Law FellowshipCommittee Member and the Faculty Advisor of the Public Service Office.
Professor Smulian has a strong background in public service lawyering. He served as the Director of Training and Legal Services at the New York Immigration Coalition, managing a statewide program that provides seminars and educational events on immigration law and immigrants’ rights issues for immigrant communities. Previously, he was Associate Director for Legal Services at Catholic Charities Department of Immigrant and Refugee Services. He has also served as a staff attorney at Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. and for Queens Legal Services Corporation. Following law school, he was an IOLA Fellow with the Legal Aid Society of Rockland County, Inc. in New York.
JunHwa Lee is thePrincipal Staff Attorney at the Departmental Disciplinary Committee, Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Judicial Department. Ms. Lee Graduated with a B.A. from Cornell University majoring in Government and concentration in International Relations. Prior to that, she graduated with a J.D. from Syracuse University School of Law. Ms. Lee has been a Staff Attorney with the DDC since 2001, and is presently a Principal Staff Attorney investigating and prosecuting professional misconduct by attorneys in the First Department where allegations vary from neglect of legal matters to escrow violations. Additionally, she has been designated to head up the investigation of attorneys practicing in the area of immigration law, who engaged in professional misconduct. She is a member of the Katzman Study Group as well as a member of the Protecting Immigrants New York Task Force.
RalucaOncioiuhas served as a staff attorney in the Immigration Legal Services Department of Catholic Charities Community Services, Archdiocese of NY for almost five years, She is now the director of that department and of the New Americans (Immigration) Hotline. Prior to joining Catholic Charities, she was a National Association for Public Interest Law (NAPIL) Fellow with the Refugee Assistance Project of the Association of the Bar of the City of NY. She is a graduate of New York University Law School, where she was the recipient of a Root-Tilden-Snow Fellowship, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and Tufts University. From 1999 to 2002, she was a member of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York’sCommittee on Immigration and Nationality Law,serving as secretary of that committee from September 2000 to June 2002. From2011 to 2012, she served on theNew York State Bar Association’s Special Committee on Immigration Representationand on theNew York Immigration Representation Study Group. She is a current member of theProtecting Immigrant New Yorkers Task Force.
Sherry K. Cohenis the former first deputy chief counsel of the Departmental Disciplinary Committee (2003 to 2010) and staff attorney (1993 to 2003). Prior to joining the Committee, she was a litigation associate at Schulte Roth & Zabel.
Ms. Cohen personally tried over 40 cases resulting in public discipline of lawyers, including the first case of public discipline against a law firm in New York (Matter of Wilens and Baker). She concentrated on cases involving substandard representation in immigration matters and unauthorized practice of law (Matter of Muto and Matter of Rodkin, e.g.) She is a former member of the Hon. Robert Katzman Immigration Study Group. She graduated “with distinction” from Hofstra School of Law and was a member of the Hofstra Law Review. She has participated in numerous CLE programs on attorney ethics.
Ms. Cohen currently serves as Reporter for the Ethics Compendium, American Immigration Lawyers Association. Each chapter of the Ethics Compendium discusses a particular Model Rule of Professional Responsibility generally and more specifically in the context of the every day practice of immigration law.
Ms. Cohen no longer practices law. She can be reached at
Victoria Neilsonis the Legal Director of Immigrant Justice Corps the country’s first immigration legal fellowship program and an outgrowth of the Katzmann Study Group on Immigrant Representation. Ms. Neilson is the former legal director of Immigration Equality, where her practice focused on asylum. Ms. Neilson has also worked for the Office of Chief Counsel at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services at the New York Asylum Office and is the former legal director of the HIV Law Project. She has also taught the LGBT Rights Clinic at New York University School of law as an adjunct professor. Ms. Neilson received her J.D. from the City University of New York School of Law and her B.A. from Harvard University.
Matthew Blaisdell is a solo practitioner in Brooklyn and White Plains, New York. He has chaired and served on a number of committees related to ethics and consumer advocacy, frequently writes and presents on the topic of immigration fraud, and is a founding member of theProtecting Immigrant New Yorkers Task Force.He has provided testimony to several cities considering legislation to protect immigrant consumers, and regularly provides trainings and lectures on these and other topics. He received his juris doctor, as well as an LL.M in environmental law, from Pace Law School, and is a graduate of the New York City Environmental Law Leadership Institute (NYCELLI).
Rebecca L. Sosa, Esq.is an immigration attorney based in New York City.Ms. Sosa’s firm,Sosa Law, focuses on family-based immigration and removal defense in Spanish and English.Ms. Sosa received her J.D. at theUniversity of California, Berkeley, School of Law (Boalt Hall), and B.A. with honors in Psychology from the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles.Ms. Sosa is an active member of the New York chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), and the NYC Bar Association Immigration & Nationality Committee.Ms. Sosa has a long-standing dedication to pro bono service.She is the Secretary of the NY AILA Pro Bono Committee, coordinating a monthly Children’s Docket for unaccompanied children facing deportation and volunteering with free immigration clinics throughout the city. In 2015 Ms. Sosa was named as a Lawyer Who Leads by Example byThe New York Law Journal based on heroutstanding record of providing crucial legal services to poor New Yorkers.
TIMED AGENDA – ISSUES RELATED TO NEW ATTORNEYS
6:00-6:05– Rebecca Sosa, Moderator, Introduction of Speakers
7:05-7:20– All Speakers Respond to Questions Posed by Moderator on Navigating Common Ethical Pitfalls
7:20-7:35-- All Speakers Respond to Questions Posed by Moderator on Best Practices for Setting up an Ethical Practice for Solos / Small Firms and for New Attorneys
7:35-7:45-- All Speakers Respond to Hypotheticals Posed by Moderator.
7:45-8:00– Questions from the Audience
TIMED AGENDA – HOT TOPICS IN ASYLUM AND ETHICS
7:00-7:05– Victoria Neilson, Moderator, Introduction of Speakers
7:05-7:20– All Speakers Respond to Questions Posed by Moderator on the Ethical Implications of Filing Weak Asylum Applications to Pursue Relief in Immigration Court (Cancellation or Prosecutorial Discretion)
7:20-7:35-- All Speakers Respond to Questions Posed by Moderator on the Ethical Issues Involved in Representing Minors, including Dual Representation of their Parents
7:35-7:45-- All Speakers Respond to Questions Posed by Moderator on the Ethical Duties to Correct Misrepresentations
7:45-7:55-- All Speakers Respond to Questions Posed by Moderator on the Ethical Issues Raised by Prolonged Backlogs at the Asylum Office and Immigration Courts
7:55-8:00– Questions from the Audience
TIMED AGENDA – ISSUES RELATED TO ATTORNEY DISCIPLINE
8:00-8:05– Matthew Blaisdell, Moderator, Introduction of Speakers
8:05-8:20–All Speakers Provide Disciplinary and Community Perspective to Issues Addressed by Prior Panels.
8:20-8:35-- All Speakers Discuss Common Complaints against Attorneys and Measures that Attorneys Can Take to Avoid Complaints.
8:35-8:45-- All Speakers Respond to Questions Posed by Moderator on Non Attorney Partnerships, Supervision of Employees, and other Scenarios involving the Unauthorized Practice of Law.
8:45-9:00– Questions from the Audience and Additional Questions Posed by Moderator.