Q&A: Fundamentals Bootcamp Track

Maggie Murphy is the managing principal of the Austin office of Jackson Lewis P.C. She is Board Certified in Immigration & Nationality Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization and is on the AILA Board of Governors. Ms. Murphy is a founding member and past chair of the State Bar of Texas Immigration & Nationality Law Section and is currently serving on the Council. She also serves on the State Bar’s Committee on Laws Relating to Immigration and Nationality. Ms. Murphy specializes in complex employment-based immigration cases and has sub-specialties in complicated work visa and permanent residence filings. She focuses a good portion of her practice on helping employers of all sizes with PERM cases and PERM campaigns. She also specializes in immigration-related employer compliance issues, including I-9 audits and investigations, E-Verify compliance training and initiatives, and export-control compliance in the work visa context. 

Renata Castro is an innovative immigration lawyer and founder of Castro Legal Group, a Pompano Beach Florida based full-service law firm. She is a prolific speaker in international, national and local immigration conferences, including the AILA Annual Conference, and she has written features in reputable international publications such as Globo and Estadão. Ms. Castro takes particular interest in domestic violence also known as VAWA cases, as well as labor certifications and EB-2/NIW. Originally from São Gonçalo a suburb of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, She is an avid reader in three languages, Portuguese, Spanish, and English. Ms. Castro graduated from Shepard Broward School of Law, and holds an MBA from Aspen University, and a Bachelor’s in Business Administration with major in Marketing by Universidade del Turabo—Sistema Universitario Ana G Mendez.

Veronica Tobar Thronson is a Clinical Professor of Law & Director of the MSU Law Clinic and the Immigration Law Clinic at Michigan State University College of Law in East Lansing, MI, where she also teaches Domestic Violence Law and Immigration and Nationality Law. Ms. Thronson routinely conducts trainings for attorneys and judges and was appointed to the faculty of The National Judicial College in 2012. Since 2015 she has served as expert faculty with the National Immigrant Women’s Advocacy Project at American University Washington College of Law’s national Family Law Attorneys Community of Practice. From 2002 to 2010, Ms. Thronson was the Directing Attorney of the Domestic Violence Project at the Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada where she practiced in the areas of family and immigration law. She also taught Community Property as an adjunct professor at the William S. Boyd School of Law at UNLV.