Immigration Law: Ethical Issues to Consider When Representing Clients

Rose Cahn is a nationally recognized expert in the field of immigrant post-conviction relief and oversees the ILRC’s pro bono Immigrant Post-Conviction Relief Project.

With over 15 years of experience working in the field of immigrant rights, and a special focus on the intersection of criminal and immigration law, Rose is a frequent speaker and trainer on the subject. Rose has co-authored several manuals including, California Post-Conviction Relief for Immigrants (Tooby) and Helping Immigrant Clients with Proposition 47 and Other Post-Conviction Legal Options: A Guide for Legal Service Providers (Californians for Safety and Justice). Rose spearheads federal, state, and local advocacy to help advance the rights of immigrants with criminal convictions and assist providers in understanding how to better serve this population. She is one of the principle drafters of California Penal Code ? 1473.7, a landmark piece of legislation that created a legal mechanism to vacate unconstitutional convictions. She serves on the Advisory Committee of the National Clean Slate Clearinghouse and is on the Steering Committee of the American Immigrant Representation Project.

Before working at the ILRC, Rose was a Senior Soros Justice Fellow at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, where she founded the nation’s first Immigrant Post-Conviction Relief Project. Prior to that, she litigated post-conviction relief cases at the Law Office of Norton Tooby and served as a law clerk to the Honorable Warren J. Ferguson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Rose graduated cum laude from New York University School of Law, where she was the recipient of the Root Tilden Kern scholarship.

Craig Dobson provides ethics advice to lawyers, represents lawyers in disciplinary matters, and practices immigration and nationality law at Dobson Law LLC. He has a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy from Furman University and a Juris Doctor, cum laude, from New England School of Law. During law school, he received CALI awards in both the Law and Ethics of Lawyering and International Business Transactions and served as Editor-in-Chief of the New England Journal of International and Comparative Law. He previously served as Georgia UPL Liaison for the American Immigration Lawyers Association’s (AILA) Georgia-Alabama Chapter and was appointed by the Supreme Court of Georgia to serve as Chairperson of the District 1 UPL Committee for the State Bar of Georgia from 2014 to 2017. He is currently a member of AILA’s National Ethics Committee and was chair from 2017 to 2021. He is also a member of the Association of Professional Responsibility’s (APRL) Cross-Border Practice Subcommittee, which is working on proposed amendments to current ABA multi-jurisdictional practice rules. Additionally, he is a member of the New York City Bar Association’s Mindfulness & Wellbeing in Law Committee and vice-chair AILA’s new Lawyer Well-Being Committee. In October 2017, he became one of the first National Board-Certified Health & Wellness Coaches.

Craig not only spends his days studying the law and ethics of lawyering, but he is also frequently called upon to teach and write on the subject. Craig has the heart of a teacher, and he enjoys helping his clients become the best that they can be as well as contributing to the advancement of the profession. He gives his clients his full and complete attention to help them find lasting solutions.

Hamel Vyas is the Director of International Personnel at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

As the founder of Lustgarten Global LLC Audrey provides companies with comprehensive global immigration representation. This includes procuring employment visas, work permits, residence permits and business visas for key employees being sent to countries around the world.

Audrey represents companies in a wide variety of industries, including the manufacturing and energy sectors. She has assisted many clients in developing immigration training materials, global immigration best practices, and compliance programs that ease the complexities of sending employees abroad to work.

Prior to founding Lustgarten Global, Audrey was an attorney and global manager for three of the top international law firms in the world specializing in immigration law. She represented multiple Fortune 500 companies in the management and execution of global immigration programs. Audrey has also been a corporate litigator with one of the top 20 full-service firms in the U.S. Licensed to practice law in Georgia, she is a member of the American Immigration Lawyers’ Association (AILA), the American Bar Association (ABA) and the Georgia Association for Women Lawyers (GAWL).

Recently she was appointed to the AILA Global Migration Section Conference Committee, she also serves on the AILA Rome District Chapter Practice Management Committee. Audrey chairs the AILA Georgia-Alabama Pro Bono Committee and is part of the ABA Immigration & Naturalization Committee Steering Group.

Greg is one of America's best known immigration lawyers and as the founding partner of Siskind Susser, PC, he has devoted his career to assisting organizations and individuals around the world with their immigration law needs.

Greg Siskind is also known for creating the first immigration law web site (1994) and the first lawyer blog (1997) in the US. ABC News listed Greg as one of 20 immigration experts on Twitter to keep up with the immigration debate. He was also the first and only immigration lawyer ever featured on the cover of the ABA Journal. And he is listed as one of the top 10 corporate immigration lawyers in the United States by Who's Who Legal.

He has written five books including the leading treatise on physician immigration and SHRM's book on employer immigration compliance (I-9s, e-Verify, etc.). Greg also works with arts and sports immigration clients as well as immigrant investors and entrepreneurs. He's also testified in Congress and drafted sections of the Immigration and Nationality Act as well as dozens of provisions currently under debate in Congress. His primary focus is business, employment and investment immigration.