Yanik, Mary

Professor of Practice Mary Yanik directs the Immigrant Rights Clinic, supervising students in representing immigrants in deportation defense, affirmative applications for lawful status, constitutional litigation, and strategic advocacy. Yanik previously worked at the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice, leading a law-and-organizing practice in support of community-directed campaigns for labor, migrant and racial justice. She served as local and trial counsel in federal litigation challenging the constitutionality of Louisiana’s marriage license law and, separately, prolonged immigration detention in Louisiana. She represented dozens of immigrant workers in reporting labor abuse to the Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and National Labor Relations Board, including the immigrant whistleblower who complained of unsafe conditions at the now-collapsed Hard Rock Hotel site in New Orleans. She further represented immigrant workers and immigrant victims of crime in U and T visa applications based on their assistance to government officials, in part through supervising law students in the Tulane Immigrant Rights’ Practicum. After law school, she clerked for Judge David F. Hamilton of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.