"Never shirked from taking the difficult case and taught us to zealously advocate" -Stanley S

In 2010, in addition to carrying a full immigration case load and teaching classes, Prof. Merton reached out to Haitian American Cultural Social Organization (HACSO) in Rockland County shortly after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti to help that community. And when I say “shortly after” I mean TPS for Haiti was announced January 21, 2010, and by March 17, 2010, Prof. Merton had connected with the director of HACSO and rounded up volunteers (including myself) for an event on March 18th to help clients. We had no intake forms ready as of March 17th (Prof. Merton was still working on that form late that night.) I don't think any of us besides the Prof were admitted to the bar so she had us all sign G-28s with her name and trusted we wouldn't make her regret that decision. Hell I don't know if anyone involved had ever done a TPS application or heard of TPS before March 17th.

I reviewed her first email to me from 2010 for this story. She ended the email with:
“This should be great! Vanessa”
It was!

I worked with Prof. Merton from 2010-2014 as part of this volunteer project. We got 200-300 people TPS which meant work cards, protection from deportation, and some stability. I was, er, underemployed during this time but I consider that work to be among the most important work of my life and in retrospect thank God I was not engaged in other work. Prof. Merton received an award for her work with HACSO in 2010. After a while doing some of these cases became easy as we became experts at it. But many of these cases were hard, like the guy who had a road rage incident and drove through a parking gate arm and got arrested (Prof. Merton still got him TPS!). Prof. Merton never shirked from taking the difficult case and taught us to zealously advocate for our clients.

When I was volunteering with HACSO I made the rookie mistake of giving clients my cell phone number. This caused me no small amount of grief in 2010-2014. But I am glad I did because I still get calls and questions from former TPS clients who are now doing well. Can I help them apply for a green card now that they are married? Can I help them with this or that matter? But also a question I am often asked, “Have you talked to Vanessa? How is Vanessa? Say hi for me. Thank Vanessa for me.”

I too would like to thank Prof. Merton for all she did for the community and for all she did for me over the years.

Stanley S