Thomas A. Elliot

Tom Elliot is a partner with the immigration law firm of Elliot & Mayock LLP, which has offices in San Francisco and Washington, DC. The firm practices the full range of immigration law and specializes in employment-based immigrant and non-immigrant visas.

Since 1989, Tom Elliot holds the highest professional rating of "A-V," a ranking given by his peers and published by the national lawyer's directory of Martindale-Hubbell. He is also listed in Best Lawyers in America and was recently recognized by the Washingtonian magazine as one of ten top immigration lawyers in the D.C. area. He has been a practicing attorney since 1974, starting in general practice with Legal Services of the Virgin Islands (LSVI) where he devoted about one-third of his time to the practice of immigration law. He rose to the post of Managing Attorney for LSVI until he transferred to the U.S. Department of Justice in January 1979. In addition to appearing in many individual immigration cases in the Virgin Islands, he successfully prosecuted cases in striking down local laws interfering with immigrants' rights in Rogers v. Larson, 563 F.2d 617 (3d Cir. 1977), as well as a successful class-action suit to protect the right of special education to children with disabilities.

From February 1979 to March 1980, Mr. Elliot served as an attorney-adviser to the Board of Immigration Appeals, the administrative appellate having exclusive jurisdiction to hear and consider appeals from immigration judges' decisions.

From March 1980 to present, Mr. Elliot has been in a private practice devoted solely to immigration and nationality law in which he regularly represents aliens in obtaining legal immigration status or defending them in deportation proceedings. His other notable reported cases include Blackie's House of Beef, Inc. v. INS, 659 F.2d 1211 (D.C. Cir. 1981); Sang Seup Shin v. INS, 750 F.2d 122 (D.C. Cir. 1984); Pei-Chi Tien v. INS, 638 F.2d (5th Cir. 1981); Todman v. Todman, 571 F.2d 149 (3d Cir. 1978); Carr v. Pena, 432 F.Supp. 828 (D.V.I. 1977). He has recently been an immigration advisor to the law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom in the case of Romallo v. INS, 934 F.Supp. 1 (D.D.C. 1996), rev'd on jurisdictional grounds, 114 F.3d 1210 (DC Cir. 1997), cert. denied, 119 S.Ct. 1139 (1999).

As a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association ("AILA"), the largest professional group of immigration lawyers nationwide, he lectures regularly and presents papers on immigration issues for the AILA's national conferences since 1983. His publications also include legal articles in Immigration Briefings, a national monthly publication produced by Federal Publications (now a West Group Company), which provides an in-depth legal analysis of various immigration topics with practical guidelines to aid the immigration practitioner in solving complex problems arising in immigration law. He continues to teach immigration courses to private attorneys as a lecturer for the District of Columbia Bar/George Washington University Continuing Legal Education Program.