Lisa has represented more than 1,000 clients in front of the USCIS, ICE, Immigration Court, and the Board of Immigration Appeals in all areas of immigration law.

Lisa graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Colorado with a major in political science and an emphasis in international relations. Then, in 1984 her career in immigration law began when she was awarded a full scholarship to the Urban Morgan Institute for International Human Rights at the University of Cincinnati of Law. Serving as a staff editor of the Human Rights Quarterly, Lisa reviewed manuscripts from leading human rights attorneys and academics from all over the world. After graduating in the top ten percent of her class, Lisa clerked for a judge in Boulder, Colorado. From 1987 to 1990, she taught at Suffolk Law School in Boston, Massachusetts where she also worked with an organization aiding asylum seekers from El Salvador and Guatemala.

Thereafter, Lisa joined the law firm of Stern and Elkind in Denver where she specialized in immigration law from 1990 until 2006.

During that time, Lisa was instrumental in starting the Young Lawyers Division of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, where she has been a member since 1990. Lisa has served on Colorado AILA’s Asylum Committee since 2010 and is currently vice-chair of the National AILA Asylum and Refugee Committee. She has served as both chair and vice-chair of this committee.

In 2006, Lisa opened her own firm in Boulder, Colorado and continues to specialize and limit her practice to immigration law. She has published and lectured on various areas of immigration law throughout the United States, and teaches Asylum and Refugee law at the University of Colorado School of Law as an adjunct professor. Recently, Lisa has been instrumental in starting the Colorado Asylum Project, a clearinghouse for indigent asylum seekers.  Lisa also serves as a mentor attorney for the Rocky Mountain Immigrant and Advocacy  Network (RMIAN) and from 2013-2014, Lisa was the Director of Immigration Law at the Colorado Health Equity Partnership.