Mellouli v. Holder Litigation Team Named Attorneys of the Year

Minnesota Lawyer has announced that the litigation team that achieved a victory at the U.S. Supreme Court this past June in the case of Mellouli v. Holder will be among the magazine’s 2015 Attorneys of the Year honorees. The team consisted of faculty and students from the Law School’s Center for New Americans; pro bono lawyers from the firm of Faegre Baker Daniels; and attorneys from the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota. The Supreme Court accepted the team’s argument on behalf of its client, Moones Mellouli, ruling 7-2 that a legal permanent resident of the United States may not be deported for a drug conviction unless that conviction is necessarily tied to a drug covered by the federal Controlled Substances Act.

To select its Attorneys of the Year, Minneapolis-based Minnesota Lawyer convenes an outside panel of legal experts to consider such criteria as leadership in the profession, involvement in major cases, and excellence in public service. A celebratory dinner will be held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Minneapolis on February 18, and the Mellouli team and other honorees will be profiled in an upcoming issue of the magazine.

To read more about the Mellouli team members and the story behind the case, please see these Law School news posts from January and June.