María Mendoza

María G. Mendoza is a highly skilled and experienced lawyer whose mission is to help her clients obtain work authorization and gain legal residency status in the United States, including, when possible, without leaving the United States to attend consulate interviews abroad. She has successfully handled thousands of immigration cases and has won cases for clients that other lawyers said were not winnable. Many of her clients have complex and difficult situations due to issues such as illegal entries into the United States, prior deportations and criminal convictions and have spent decades trying to find a solution to fix their papers. Due to her vast experience, knowledge and creativity, Ms. Mendoza is able to create winning solutions for her clients.

In the District of Columbia and Maryland, Ms. Mendoza, through her team of attorneys, fights for the rights of the injured in automotive accidents including bus accidents, pedestrian accidents, drunk driving accidents and commercial vehicle/trucking cases involving catastrophic injury and death.

After graduating from law school at age 23, Ms. Mendoza started her legal career as a judicial law clerk for the Honorable Vanessa Ruiz of the D.C. Court of Appeals, the equivalent of the Supreme Court for the District of Columbia. She was a 2009-2010 law fellow for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute where she worked on national policies that would uplevel the Latino community. Before turning her focus to immigration and personal injury law, Ms. Mendoza’s prior clients included governmental entities of Puerto Rico, large corporations and Ms. Mendoza litigated hundreds of actions, in administrative, state and federal courts on behalf of her clients. She worked with some of the best lawyers in Washington D.C. before she founded her own law firm.

A staunch advocate for immigrants, underserved communities, and women; Ms. Mendoza is involved in a number of national and local civic organizations. She is a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association and served on the Board of Directors for the Hispanic Bar Association of the District of Columbia for several years at the beginning of her career. She also served as a Board Director for the Women’s Bar Association of the District of Columbia and previously held leadership positions with the D.C. Bar.

Ms. Mendoza understands the plight of Latino immigrants, Latino families, and other underserved communities very well. Her mother, who was born in Gomez Palacio, Durango, Mexico, came to the United States as part of the Bracero program, where she and her immediate family did the jobs most Americans don’t want to do — picking onions and other agricultural produce under the hot sun for very little pay and under poor working conditions. Ms.Mendoza’s father was born and raised in New York City and grew up amongst tremendous poverty and street crime. Ms. Mendoza grew up outside of El Paso, Texas, in a community riddled with domestic violence, gangs, street crimes, single-parent households, and other challenges that often accompany poverty. As a teenager, Ms. Mendoza dreamed that it was possible to achieve more than what society expected of her and this ability to dream of a better life ignited Ms. Mendoza’s legal career. Ms. Mendoza uses her ability to think outside the box to help her clients achieve their very own American dreams.