About Kerry
Kerry Bretz is a partner at Bretz & Coven, LLP, a New York City-based law firm specializing in immigration and crimmigration cases. He joined the New York State Bar in 1996. The firm, located at 305 Broadway, Suite 100, New York, NY 10007, offers services such as deportation defense, family-based green cards, naturalization, and post-conviction relief. He earned his Juris Doctor from the City University of New York School of Law, Queens College, in 1991. Prior to that, he graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Herbert H. Lehman College of the City University of New York in 1988. Before entering private practice, he served as a trial attorney for the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS).
His practice focuses on deportation defense and the immigration consequences of criminal and fraudulent activity. He played a significant role in challenging the retroactive application of new immigration laws and mandatory detention. Notably, he was the attorney of record in Henderson v. INS, 157 F.3d 106 (2d Cir. 1998), and contributed to INS v. St. Cyr, 533 U.S.
289 (2001), and Calcano-Martinez v. INS, 533 U.S. 348 (2001), cases that changed the availability of relief to non-citizens with criminal convictions and secured the right to seek judicial review of decisions of the Board of Immigration Appeals. Additionally, after numerous briefs and oral arguments, the Court in St. John v — McElroy (SDNY 1996) found unconstitutional a former mandatory detention statute. He was awarded $88,000 in Equal Access to Justice Act fees for his pro bono work on that case, in which he represented a mentally challenged non-citizen with a foreign drug trafficking conviction. He is regularly consulted by the criminal defense bar, quoted in newspapers, and has appeared on reputable television programs (CNN, O'Reilly Factor, Judge Jeannie, etc.).
He is an active member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association and a frequent lecturer at CLE presentations and other events presented by the firm and sponsored by local bar associations and the offices of local elected officials. He is also a former Commissioner for the Archdiocese of New York's Commission for the Dignity of Immigrants. He is Martindale-Hubbell® AV-Rated®, the highest peer-review rating an attorney can receive, and listed in both The Best Lawyers in America© and Super Lawyers. He is admitted to practice in New York, Connecticut, and Florida and before the U.S. District Court, Southern District of NY. The U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, Third Circuit, and Fifth Circuit.
