DAVID WOLFE LEOPOLD

Mr. Leopold is the founder and principal of DAVID WOLFE LEOPOLD & ASSOCIATES Co. LPA. His diverse immigration, visa, and citizenship practice includes the representation of major health care institutions and teaching hospitals, individual clinical and research physicians and residents, and other health care professionals; employer sanctions defense; deportation defense and federal immigration litigation. Mr. Leopold is the past president of the Washington, D.C.-based American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA www.aila.org), the premier bar association of immigration lawyers and professors in the U.S. He has served as AILA’s top liaison to the Department of Homeland Security’s key enforcement bureaus and co-founded the American Immigration Council’s Litigation Institute, a hands-on continuing legal education program focused on federal immigration litigation.

A nationally recognized immigration reform advocate, blogger, and public speaker, Mr. Leopold has testified as an immigration law expert before the U.S Congress and The Ohio General Assembly.  His opinions and analysis are frequently sought after by the national media, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Financial News, CNN, MSNBC, FOX News, National Public Radio and ABC News Radio. 

Mr. Leopold lectures on immigration law and policy throughout the U.S. He served as a Senior Editor of AILA’s Immigration & Nationality Handbook and as a contributing author to AILA’s Visa Processing Guide. For nearly 20 years Mr. Leopold taught immigration law, advanced business immigration and asylum law at the Case Western Reserve and Cleveland-Marshall Schools of Law where he directed the immigration curricula as an adjunct professor of law.

Mr. Leopold is admitted to practice law before the bars of the Supreme Court of Ohio, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, the Fifth, Sixth and Ninth Circuit Courts of Appeals, and the United States Supreme Court.

Representitive Cases:

Mendieta-Robles v. Gonzales, 2007 FED App. 0387N (6th Cir.2007); Tilley v. Gonzales, 2007 FED App. 0295N (6th Cir.2007); Pak v. Reno, 196 F.3d 666 (6th Cir. 1999); Pulice v. INS, 218 F.3d 505 (6th Cir. 2000); Roman v. Ashcroft, 340 F.3d 314 (6th Cir. 2003); Rosales-Garcia v. Holland, 322 F.3d 386 (6th Cir. 2003)(en banc); Roman v. Ashcroft, 181 F. Supp. 2d 808 (N.D. Ohio 2002); Denko v. Ashcroft, 351 F.3d 717 (6th Cir. 2003); Cline v. Catholic Diocese, 206 F.3d 651 (6th Cir. 1999).Independence Local School District Board of Education v. State Employment Relations Board et al. 62 Ohio St. 3d 134 (1991); Board Of Education Of The Strongsville City School District v. Theado, 57 Ohio St. 3d (1991); Mackey v. Steve Barry Ford, Inc., 1991 Ohio App. LEXIS 2574 (May 30, 1991); Theodore T. Theodore v. Geo Churchill, Inc., 1990 Ohio App. LEXIS 5961; Noll v. Nezbeth, 63 Ohio App. 3d 46 (1990); D'Ambrosi v. Vicorp Specialty Restaurant, Inc., 1989 Ohio App. LEXIS 628; Lazar v. Korman, 1987 Ohio App. LEXIS 9215; Dalzell-Milstein v. Midwestern Indem. Co., 1986 Ohio App. LEXIS 8631; Republic Steel Corp. v. Hailey, 30 Ohio App. 3d 103 (1986)

Publications:

Retrogression of Employment Based Visas: The New Reality in Business Immigration, co-author, AILA (2006).
Getting Out: Strategies for Challenging Unlawful Detention in Federal Court, co-author, AILA (2006).
Visa Processing Guide, Contributing Author, AILA (2002-2005).
The Nuts and Bolts of Federal Court Litigation, co-author, AILA Immigration and Nationality Handbook (2004-05).
Advanced Issues in Adjustment of Status and Consular Processing, co-author, AILA Immigration and Nationality Handbook (2002-03).
Immigration Law and the Public Schools: Who is Entitled to a Free Public Education? Ohio School Law Journal (January/February 2000).
The Detention of Noncitizens: An Overview of the Law, Its Implication, and Legal Strategies, co-author, AILA Immigration and Nationality Handbook 34-67 (1999-00).
Immigration and Nationality Law Handbook (AILA, 2005-2007), Senior Editor.
Litigation Toolbox, (AILA 2002), Contributor.

HEATHER DRABEK PRENDERGAST

Ms. Prendergast joined David Wolfe Leopold & Associates Co., LPA as an associate attorney in 2009. Her practice focuses on complex removal defense including trials, appeals, and federal court litigation; employment-based immigration for physicians, researchers, scientists, computer programmers, engineers and other skilled professionals; family-based immigration including foreign spouses, fiancées, and family unity waivers; asylum; naturalization and citizenship. A member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (“AILA”), Ms. Prendergast serves on AILA’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) Liaison Committee, where she works with ICE leadership to ensure that the law is enforced fairly. She received her Juris Doctorate from the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law in 2008, and earned her Bachelor of Arts Degree from Skidmore College in 2004, where she studied history and philosophy.

Ms. Prendergast is admitted to practice in Ohio, New York, the Federal District Court for the Northern District of Ohio and the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.