Mercedes S. Cano

Mercedes S. Cano is the sole proprietor of the Law Office of Mercedes S. Cano.  She has extensive experience in the area of immigration law, and more specifically in matters involving deportation, immigration petitions with criminal issues and criminal defense in both immigration and criminal courts.  She has represented immigrants abused by United States citizens or permanent legal residents.  Ms. Cano has successfully represented immigrants in immigration courts in and out of

New YorkState and before the Board of Immigration Appeals. Her practice advising immigrant communities helped her emerge as a practical and efficient business consultant for business negotiating leases, contracts, and the purchase and sale of corporations.

Community Service: In 1999, with funds from the Initiative for Public Interest at YaleUniversity, Ms. Cano formed a not-for-profit organization that provided her with her first immigration cases. After forming a community center in JacksonHeights, Queens, New York, she created an immigration clinic that helped over 1700 immigration families. The research and handling of these immigration cases gave rise to the immigration, criminal and family practice she fervently developed after leaving the community center.

She was published by the New York City Law Review, Volume Twelve, Fall 2008 in the collaborative article titled  “Public Interest Practice Section Notes from the Field: Challenges of Indigent Criminal Defense.”

Ms. Cano received her Bachelor of Arts in English Literature cum laude from Queens College and her Jurist Doctorate from CUNY School of Law.  In 2011 she became an Adjunct Professor at CUNY School of Law in a special project as a consultant to immigration and criminal defense attorney after a landmark decision (Padilla v. Kentucky) decision by U.S. Supreme Court requiring defense attorneys to advise their clients on immigration consequences. She has lectured attorneys through Continuing Legal Education lectures on immigration consequences in criminal and family courts, specifically to defense attorneys in the private bar and to Assigned counsel attorneys in the Bronx Family Court.  She has made presentations to business groups, churches, schools, hospitals and not-for- profit organizations on immigration, criminal and family issues.  She is the President of the Latino Lawyers Association of Queens County and a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), the Queens County Bar Association, the New York State Association of Criminal Defense, National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Business, Count Me In/Make Mine a Million, National Association of Professional Women and Association of Trial Lawyers of America.