Stephanie McClure

In an area of law where a single plea deal can determine whether someone keeps a life in the United States or is forced to leave it behind, few attorneys are willing to step in. Stephanie McClure is more than happy to. A nationally recognized crimmigration and post‑conviction specialist, admitted in New York, New Jersey, California, Massachusetts, and a list of Federal Courts across the country, she focuses on the cases that already look closed on paper and asks a different question. What went wrong and how can it be fixed?

McClure founded SMC Law Group (f/k/a Law Office of Stephanie McClure), a firm that is known for one highly specific capability; vacating decades‑old criminal convictions that have turned into immigration death sentences. Her firm’s body of work includes the vacatur of  convictions across the country, including one recent one that stood for more than forty years, restoring freedom of movement for a longtime resident who had lived under the threat of detention and deportation every time he traveled.

“That moment where everyone assumes a file is over is exactly where my work usually begins,” McClure says. “The client has been told no, sometimes by multiple lawyers, and then someone wisely decides to email or call me anyway.”

From special victims prosecutor to post‑conviction strategist

Before her name began circulating nationally as the ultimate “fixer,” McClure spent a decade on the other side of the aisle. After graduating from Fordham University and Seton Hall University School of Law, she obtained a prestigious judicial clerkship and then joined the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office in New Jersey. She rose quickly to supervising trial attorney, handling some of the state’s most serious crimes.  She spent a large part of her career on elite Special Victims Unit cases (think Law & Order: SVU) and securing hundreds of convictions for the state. National media outlets, including CNN and ABC News, covered matters she handled during that period, underscoring the stakes of the work and the public scrutiny that came with it.

That prosecutorial experience gave her unmatched knowledge of how criminal cases are assembled, where errors creep in, and how constitutional violations can hide inside everyday plea negotiations. It also helped her secure one of the nations most demanding credentials. Certification by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Criminal Trial Attorney, a designation awarded to fewer than one percent of practitioners in the state.  She is proud to be one of only two women in her area who hold that honor; the other is a sitting judge (who, without coincidence, is McClure’s old Special Victims Unit partner at the prosecutor’s office.  “Spending nearly ten years building, negotiating, and trying cases taught me exactly how the system works, and how it fails,” she says. “Now I use that same knowledge to unwind those failures when they collide with immigration law unfairly uprooting people’s lives and threatening to separate families.”

When immigration consequences surface decades later

In McClure’s current practice, the fact pattern often looks similar. A client accepted a plea deal many years earlier on the advice of counsel who either misunderstood or underplayed the risk to their immigration status. When that person applies for a green card, seeks naturalization or returns from a trip abroad, the true consequence surfaces, sometimes in the form of immediate detention and removal proceedings.

One case in particular seems to be widely known as exemplary of her never-back-down commitment to protecting her clients. A certain client had taken a plea to a drug offense roughly twenty‑five years before he met McClure. The agreement involved minimal custody time and came with assurances that immigration status would not be affected. Decades later, he was denied lawful status and placed in removal proceedings. Multiple lawyers reviewed the record and advised that nothing more could be done. He had an “impossible” case, and no one would help even though he had a U.S. citizen wife, children, had legally entered the country, and paid taxes for decades. He was led to McClure by his immigration attorney as a last call. McClure took a different approach, told him there was a way, and challenged the conviction on constitutional grounds. After persuading the prosecutor to support the effort by pointing to errors in the original prosecution that were undeniable, plans were made to present vacatur to the court, and so it was accomplished. However, prior to the order being entered into the court’s computer, the client was mistakenly taken into custody outside the courtroom, and placed on a bus to Riker’s Island.  The client was able to shoot off a text to his wife, who was able to text McClure after hours. McClure got the prosecutor and an after-hours judge to immediately issue an order to stop the bus, and literally take him off of it.  Her client was spared being booked into jail, which would have resulted in a domino effect that handed him over to ICE for immediate removal. The client was brought back to the court the next week before the same judge who issued a full vacatur of the conviction. The judge then issued something rare in open court. An apology.

“I tell clients that we cannot rewrite the past, but we can re-examine it. If someone pled guilty without understanding that they were effectively signing a deportation order, that is something a court should hear.  In the same way, if a client was pushed into taking a deal without any meaningful investigation or due process, that too is something unjust.  People don’t realize the nasty truth that innocent people are scared into plea deals every day by lawyers who would rather do that than put up a fight for actual innocence.  I can’t stand by and watch that tear families apart.”

A national resource for immigration lawyers

As federal immigration enforcement has intensified, the hybrid practice known as crimmigration has become more central to outcomes in removal and detention cases. The American Immigration Lawyers Association has repeatedly noted that criminal convictions are among the leading obstacles in immigration matters, and organizations such as the American Immigration Council have documented how even minor offenses can trigger mandatory detention or bars to relief. These dynamics have created demand for attorneys who can move between criminal and immigration courts with equal fluency.

McClure’s firm is unquestionably the go-to resource in that space. Immigration attorneys across the country call when a client’s path to lawful status is blocked by an old conviction. Her team also files emergency habeas petitions for detained immigrants transferred across states, coordinates with local counsel in multiple jurisdictions, and seeks to clear the underlying convictions so that primary immigration counsel can move forward. “I’m grateful that so many attorneys trust me with their clients. Truly, we make an ideal team. They know the immigration law cold. I know the crimmigration and criminal law cold. Together we work simultaneously, in different courts, to bring together a strategy that actually works and keeps people in the U.S. and keeps families together.” 

High pressure, high credentials, low room for error

The pressure is often measured in hours instead of months. In another matter that is talked about by peers, a survivor of severe domestic violence had been arrested alongside her abusive partner during a drug investigation and, based on poor advice, accepted a plea that later triggered removal. Fifteen years after the original case, she found herself in ICE custody with a final order of removal and a plane ticket scheduled for the next day. McClure obtained an emergency hearing, challenged the conviction, and secured vacatur just in time to halt the removal process.

Clients often describe those final days in stark terms. “Every lawyer would look at my file and immediately tell me no,” one former client wrote in a public review. “I was told I had no hope.” McClure was the first attorney to say she could help, the client added, and followed through with a result that allowed the person to remain in the United States.

McClure’s work has drawn attention from the judiciary as well as from clients. In 2024 and 2025 she was honored by the judiciary for her Outstanding Pro Bono Service and separately recognized for her steady-handed and effective representation of clients with severe mental illness. Once rumored to be headed for the judiciary herself, she politely deflects those rumors, at least for the immediate future. She has, however, written handbooks for the incoming judicial lawclerks who assist the sitting bench behind the scenes, as well as written guidance for attorneys dealing with mentally ill clients.  She now serves on the New Jersey’s Office of Attorney Ethics, a role that places her inside the system that regulates and disciplines lawyers for failing professionalism.

Away from the courtroom, she is candid about the role of faith in her practice. McClure is openly Christian and is known to fast and pray alongside clients before important court dates. “For the first decade of my career, I kept three books by my bedside, the Rules of Evidence, The Rules of Court, and the Bible … “  She added the Bible remains bedside -now in her 20th year of service as an attorney.   “I feel prayer and fasting are another part of my practice that is unique and really valued by a lot of clients.  I’ve seen miracles and obstacles change in an instant and really believe it adds an air of peace to conversations and hearts during times of chaos and crisis that may otherwise feel overwhelming.  I don’t want my clients to feel overwhelmed.  I want them to feel emboldened by standing up for their rights and by praying to a God who loves justice.” She’s been quoted as saying, “Jesus is the owner of my firm 100%, though he only takes 10” (referring to tithing) “What a partner to have.”

A common denominator and a second business

McClure’s focus on legality and doing things the “right” way extends beyond her law firm. Alongside Rebecca Eagleson, she founded Sid Moses, an artist immigration agency based in New York and Los Angeles, but with global reach.  She formed the agency after a decade of developing artists behind-the-scenes, getting clients opportunities to show their work on prestigious Fashion Week runways around the world, and in some of the most prestigious media outlets.  Sid Moses provides these services for immigration lawyers who have developed a plan to present a client for an O-1 artist visa, but who has recognized the need for additional credentials in a given area where the client’s resume is a bit weak.  Sid Moses legally and strategically fills in credential gaps by developing artists legitimately without padding resumes, offering international artists and fashion designers credible pathways into the United States. The agency provides petitioner services, as well as a virtual menu of services and packages.  Sid Moses mirrors the law firm modus operandi; working with, not against an immigration attorney, serving to create the foundation upon which the immigration attorney can do what they do best, without obstacles or gaps.

“There is a right way to build credentials through honest, high-level industry work,” she says. “It takes more effort, but it gives a designer or artist a genuine platform to build on once they are here instead of something that collapses at the first sign of scrutiny.”

Overall, the common denominator is clear; in her twentieth year of practice, McClure is the call immigration lawyers make. They trust she will do right by their firms and their clients, not only because of her track record and credentials, but also because of her genuine love and commitment to doing the right thing.

“I credit God and my parents for instilling integrity by example.  My whole family is like this.  I’ll never forget reading an article in the New York Times about my brother being known as the hardest working actor on Broadway… or the story that my sister made her boss cry when she was young. Actual tears, when he spotted her on surveillance video, alone, putting three dollars back in his cash drawer that she had found on the floor during her 12-hour shift. Doing the right thing makes my heart happy, and I bring that into all my affairs.”