Amy R. Novick (email)

Amy  Novick is Of Counsel to The Haynes Immigration Law Firm, where she focuses her practice on obtaining visas for highly skilled professionals, waivers of the two-year home residency requirement, issues of concern to G-4 international workers, investors, foreign adoptions, naturalization and citizenship, waivers of inadmissibility, and family-based immigration matters.  Before joining The Haynes Immigration Law Firm, Amy practiced at Maggio & Kattar as a Senior Attorney and Shareholder. Amy also has a number Of Counsel and affiliated relationships with other law firms, including a Strategic Alliance with St. Ledger-Roty Neuman & Olson LLP, a telecommunications boutique law firm located in Washington, DC.

Amy has been involved with immigration and nationality law and policy for more than 20 years.  She served as Deputy Director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) where she directed the Association's extensive immigration education program, including publishing, legal education conferences, and marketing.  Amy has significant experience in organizational management and strategic planning.

Named to International Who's Who of Corporate Immigration Lawyers.

Bar Admissions

• District of Columbia 1989.
• Pennsylvania 1984.

Education (United States and Internationally)

• 1984 Antioch School of Law, J.D. (Special emphasis on international refugee law) and jurisprudence; completed L.L.M.-level internship and research at the UNHCR in Geneva, Switzerland. 
• 1978 Clark University B.A. (government with special emphasis on international relations; Completed year abroad at London School of Economics-affiliated program and international relations curriculum at the University of Haifa.

Honors

• Serving People and the Public Interest, UDC Law School Feature (2011).
• Center for Immigration Law and Policy, UDC Law School, Special Recognition (2007).
• AILA Special Commendation for Leadership and Service (2001, 2004).
• National Immigration Project Special Recognition Award. (2004).
• AILA Presidential Commendation for Outstanding Service (1999).
• AILA Edward L. Dubroff Memorial Writing Competition Award (1984).
• Editor, Antioch Law Review (1983-84).

Past Positions

• Immigrants' List
  Executive Director. (2009-2010)
  • Serve as executive for pro-immigration political action committee; manage all FEC filing obligations.
• Maggio & Kattar, P.C.
  Shareholder and Partner. (2005-2008)
  • Represent individuals before the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and Department of State; employment-based immigration, J waivers, investors, inadmissibility issues, family-based immigration, adoption, and immigration problems that related to public policy and immigration agency interpretation of law; manage law firm’s website, electronic newsletter, and marketing activities.
• Office of the Special Arbiter.
  Consulting Attorney. (2004)
  • Legal and fact-based research related to the development of a plan to implement the Jerry M. (juvenile justice class action) consent decree and court orders; prepare memoranda on qualitative and quantitative compliance standards and on standards related to termination and dismissal in institutional reform litigation; provided other litigation mediation support.
• American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA).
  Acting Executive Director. (1996)
  Deputy Director, Programs. (1999-2004)
  Senior Director, Education. (1996-1999)
  Associate Director. (1985-1996)

Professional Activities

• Board member, Immigrants' List (2011-present).
• Board of Trustees, American Immigration Law Foundation (2006-present).
• Founding Member, Board of Directors, University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law Center for Immigration Law and Practice (2004-07).

Recent Presentations

• Tourism Vancouver (2011).
  
• DC Bar CLE on Immigration Law (2008, 2009, 2010, 2011).
• AILA Annual Conference on Immigration Law (2009, 2010).
• AILA Texas Chapter Conference: Alternatives to Labor Certification: Extraordinary Ability / National Interest Waivers (2010).
• Independent Education Consultants Association (2009).
• AILA Midyear Conference on Immigration Law (2009).
• AILA Teleconference on O-1 Visas for Business (2009).
• Conference on Immigration Policies and Development (2008, 2009).

Publications

• Columnist, Food Service Monthly.
• Assistant Editor, AILA's Guide to PERM Labor Certification (AILA).
• Assistant Editor, Immigration Options for Investors and Entrepreneurs (AILA).
• Update author, Chapter 22, J Visas, Immigration and Law Practice (Thompson/West).
• Editor, AILA Midyear Conference Handbook.
• Author, with Michael Maggio, “Visas for Foreign Talent and Their Agencies.”
• Executive Editor, Immigration Law Today (AILA).
• Managing Editor, Immigration and National Law Handbook (AILA).
• Managing Editor, The Visa Processing Guide (AILA).
• Managing Editor, U.S. Consular Posts Handbook (AILA).
• Executive Editor, Selected Fundamentals of Immigration Law and Practice (AILA).
• Managing Editor, AILA’s Family Immigration Law Handbook (AILA).
• Managing Editor, Immigration Option for Academics and Researcher (AILA).

Radlyn Mendoza

Ms. Mendoza has coordinated for two years in a row the Hampton Road area's  Citizenship Day held at St. Gregory's Catholic Church. She and other local immigration attorneys, paralegals and USCIS volunteers assisted locals in completing Naturalization applications. It was a free event.

Nadia Ezzelarab-Gill (e-mail)

Nadia Ezzelarab-Gill is a licensed Attorney in Washington, DC (2009), New York (2000), and Sweden (1988). She is a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA).

Nadia has practiced immigration law since 2003, and has been Of Counsel to the Haynes Immigration Law Firm since March, 2008. Nadia’s primary focus is on Litigation before the Immigration Courts and Appeals before the Board of Immigration Appeals and the Administrative Appeals Office. She has represented a number of Detainees before the Immigration Courts, and in negotiations with the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), involving Bond and Release, as well as Cancellation of Removal, Political Asylum, Adjustment of Status, and other forms of immigration relief.

Nadia also represents clients before the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services (USCIS), in a variety of immigrant and non-immigrant visa matters, Family Based as well as Employment & Business based, and also in Consular Processing matters before U.S. Embassies and Consulates abroad. Nadia, further, contracts with other DC Law Firms that need U.S. licensed attorneys for cases involving the Swedish, Danish or Norwegian languages.

Prior to starting her own practice, Nadia was an Associate Attorney at the Immigration Law Firm Braverman & Lin, P.C. in Arlington, Virginia, from 2003 to 2008.

Before becoming an immigration practitioner, Nadia’s focus was on Human Rights and Humanitarian law. She served as Director of the Legal Department at the Center for the Prevention of Genocide, in Rosslyn, Virginia from 2002 to 2003, where she supervised research and writing of legal sections in Human Rights Reports, published by the Center.

During 2000-2002, Nadia was an Associate Attorney with the Law firm Kohn, Swift & Graf, P.C. in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She participated in complex litigation of international and domestic cases, including Doe v. Karadzic (S.D.N.Y.), in which the firm was co-counsel, representing 23 Muslim Plaintiffs who had been detained in Bosnian Concentration Camps in the 1990s. The Plaintiffs were granted a Verdict of Compensatory and Punitive Damages in the amount of $4.5 Billion. She also assisted in Doe v. Unocal (9th Cir), a case in which Burmese nationals sued in a U.S. Federal District Court that ruled that corporations and their executives can be held liable under the Alien Tort Claims Act for violations of international human rights norms in foreign countries, and that U.S. courts have the authority to adjudicate such claims. However, the District Court dismissed the case, holding that Unocal could only be held liable if it wanted the Burmese military to commit the alleged abuses, which it held that the Plaintiffs had not shown. On Appeal, however, before an eleven-judge en banc panel, the Ninth Circuit reversed the District Court’s dismissal, and decided to rehear the appeal. The case eventually settled, in 2004.

Prior thereto, Nadia worked as Protocol Liaison Officer at the Embassy of Egypt, in Washington, D.C. in 1999 and 2000. She was Responsible for Communications with the U.S. Department of State, concerning Diplomatic Visas, Customs Clearances, Tax Exemptions; Drafting of Diplomatic Notes for communications with other Governments and Embassies, regarding Diplomatic Relations and Security Matters.

Nadia was a Fellow with the Center for Justice & International Law (CEJIL) in Washington, D.C. from 1996-1998. Her main focus during the fellowship was to research and prepare a case that had previously been declared inadmissible by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). The complaint charged that the Canadian government was in violation of international human rights laws by failing to provide redress for victims of grave human rights abuses and crimes against humanity. Specifically, the case concerned a Concentration Camp guard who was in charge of shipping Jews to Auschwitz during WWII, but who had been acquitted in war crimes prosecutions in Canada. CEJIL assisted a group of Canadian Jews in the case, which was declared admissible by the IACHR upon re-submission. The IACHR did not make a final ruling on the case, but negotiated a partial settlement. During the fellowship, Nadia was also one of the main coordinators of a conference in DC between CEJIL and Members of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

Nadia did her clerkship in Sweden, in Haparanda and Boden District Courts, 1989 to 1991. She served in a Magistrate capacity, adjudicating Misdemeanor Criminal offences, Torts; Bankruptcy matters Adoptions; Uncontested Divorces; Estate Taxation; Contract Disputes, and was eventually given Expanded Competence in Bankruptcy and Damages proceedings.

EDUCATION

Nadia received her J.D. from the University of Lund, Sweden, in 1988, and an LLM Degree in International Law from the American University, Washington College of Law in 1996. During her LLM program, Nadia was a Dean’s Fellow with Professor Robert K. Goldman. As a Dean’s Fellow, she researched and assisted in developing principles for the Protection of Internally Displaced Persons, with Professor Goldman in conjunction with the United Nations, among others. She also served as Inter-American Systems Editor (1994-1996) on The Human Rights Brief, a Newsletter published by the Washington College of Law.   

Nadia did an Internship at the Organization of American States, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Washington, DC from 1996 to1997, where she researched the status of Amnesty Laws and Accountability in International Law, with a focus on the Inter-American system. She also assisted in drafting submissions to the Commission and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.