New York City Immigration Lawyer | New York

Our law firm specializes in immigration, naturalization & uncontested matrimonial matters. Clients include accomplished research scientists and professionals, high-profile artists and athletes, and a wide variety of professionals.

Law firm specializing in complex business and family immigration and uncontested matrimonial matters. Our clients include research hosptials, large and small business as well as artists (actors, musicians, painters, etc.), athletes, research scientists and business people who have reached the very top of their field.

Our firm also handles a substantial amount of matrimonial matters including prenuptial agreements, separation agreements and uncontested divorces.

Merrill Cohen has practiced immigration law for over 15 years. She heads up her own immigration firm, Merrill R. Cohen & Associates, PC., in midtown Manhattan. Currently, as of January 2011, the firm has two associate attorneys, Adam S. Cohen and Frieda Shapiro, each of whom has over nine years of experience in top immigration law firms.

Throughout her career, Ms. Cohen has handled a wide range of immigration matters including political asylum, deportation/ removal, motions and appeals. Over the past 10 years, the Law Office has primarily handled business and family immigration matters and a select number of asylum and criminal immigration/ removal cases. Ms. Cohen personally handles primarily EB-1, EB-2, PERM and complex O-1, L-1 and H-1B cases. Clients include research hospitals, universities and corporations, and a wide variety of professionals: research scientists, engineers, computer science professionals, engineers, marketing managers and researchers, architects, fashion designers, TV producers, writers, mathematicians, artists, graphic designers, actors, models, and musicians. Of particular note, Ms. Cohen and her office have obtained green cards for many internationally-recognized research scientists (mainly cancer researchers), athletes (top-ranked squash players) and artists (actors, designers and painters).

• Member, American Immigration Lawyers Association ("AILA").
  
  Member, Faculty, Lawline.com.  Providing Continuing Legal Education for lawyers.
  
  Member, Law Review, Cardozo School of Law, 1990-1991.

• Merrill R. Cohen was an invited lecturer on immigration law matters in 2010, including EB-1 and PERM issues; she is honored to have received the 2008 Presidential Commission, the 2007 Congressional Medal of Distinction; the 2005 Ronald Reagan Republican Gold Medal; the 2005 and 2003 National Leadership Awards. She is listed in the National Register of Who’s Who in Executives and Professionals and has also been nominated to serve on the Ronald Reagan Congressional Committee. Merrill Cohen has been interviewed for a feature article on her in the New York Law Journal magazien, New York Lawyer; in the New York Post, People Magazine, ABC News.com and many other national publications.
  She was a member of Law Review, Cardozo School of Law 1990-1991.

• April 2011: H-1B - We just obtained an H-1B Approval where the Beneficiary will be the sole employee of a new company. To win, we needed to be innovative: we showed a company bank statement with sufficient funds for overhead and the salary. We also provided a detailed “Employee Performance Review” form that the off-site employer will use to supervise her. The case was approved in 1 week.
  
  February 2011:  Immigration just approved the EB-1 green card case we filed for Squash Player Alister Walker, #20 in the world (career high #12). Previously we obtained EB-1 green cards for Squash Players from India, England, South Africa & Australia, and we will file an EB-1 petition for a top-ranked Squash Player from Pakistan in the next few weeks.
  
   
  
  EB-1 Extraordinary Ability in the Arts, Sciences, Business, Education or Athletics. Over the past 15+ years, our law office has been fortunate to file many successful EB-1 petitions for top research scientists, fashion designers, musicians, models, etc. These individuals typically have received top honors, including Emmys for TV production, Gold and Silver Promax Awards for top promos and motion graphics, major awards from international scientific associations, etc. The cases below are a sample of our notable successes. In each case, either the profession is unusual (“Classical Music Whistler” or “Research Scientist Specializing in Female Spider Genitalia”) or the opposite, the field is extremely common (clothing designer, musician, computer programmer). In the first instance, we had to prove that individual is part of a ‘field’ rather than someone with a unique skill, while in the latter, we had to prove that the individual had risen to the very top of that very broad field.
  
   
  
  Extraordinary Ability in the Sciences Research Scientist, Chronic Pain Management. We obtained a Green Card for this research scientist, who had come to our office looking for a J-1 visa, which would have only provided him with temporary status.However, upon reviewing his credentials, we asked him if he was interested in permanent residence, and he was shocked that he could qualify.It is our experience that many of the most-qualified scientists do not realize that they are able to self-petition for Green Cards, as they are only too-aware of the very high goals they have set for themselves, and that they have not yet achieved those goals. However, their accomplishments are already far-superior to their peers, and often they are so advanced that they qualify for self-sponsorship, so they don’t even require an employer to sponsor them. This was one of those cases. We obtained a Green Card for this Research Scientist
  
   
  
  Research Scientists, Cancer We obtained a Green Card for this Researcher in the field of emergency medicine after she had been told by other immigration lawyers that she didn’t qualify for EB-1 Extraordinary Ability. We proved that this researcher Extraordinary Ability in the Arts Fashion Designer, Popular Designs with an International Design House We obtained a Green Card for this Fashion Designer on first submission, without need for additional documentation. She worked as one of the many “unnamed” and unheralded designers for a major international design house, whose brand is the name of the Designer, himself. Despite having virtually no published material at all in the Fashion Designers own name, the case was approved by Immigration.

• Ms. Cohen featured in a multi-page article in the New York Law Journal magazine, New York Lawyer; she was interviewed on CBS and FOX TV and was interviewed for a front-page article in the New York Post, as well as in People Magazine and other major periodicals.

Fee:Our fees are reasonable, and depend upon the service we provide for you or your company's employees.  Please feel free to request a quote for legal fees.

Service Type:Private

Language:English, Hebrew, Spanish