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Vianey K. Hurtado: Named Children’s Pro Bono Attorney of the Year Before She Turned Thirty

Vianey K. Hurtado built her Phoenix practice around family-based immigration and deportation defense for clients with prior convictions — the same intersection of criminal and immigration law she took on pro bono as a young attorney with the Florence Project.

Vianey K. Hurtado — At a Glance

Sources: vianeylaw.com (firm website), Super Lawyers, Avvo, Justia, State Bar of Arizona, Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project. Compiled August 2026.

Origin

Yuma Roots, a Border-State Perspective

Vianey Hurtado was born and raised in Yuma, Arizona, the daughter of Mexican immigrants. She moved to Phoenix for her undergraduate degree at Arizona State University, then earned her J.D. from Phoenix School of Law in 2012 and was admitted to the State Bar of Arizona in 2014. Per her firm, her family’s own immigration story shaped her decision to practice immigration law specifically.

Early in her career, per Justia’s attorney directory, Hurtado dedicated significant time to pro bono representation through the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project, and was recognized as the organization’s Children’s Pro Bono Attorney of the Year in 2018 — a credential documenting real, unpaid work on behalf of unaccompanied and detained immigrant minors, not a marketing claim. She was also recognized by Chicanos Por La Causa, a long-running Arizona Latino community organization, for her community work.

Practice

Where Immigration Meets a Criminal Record

Per the firm, Hurtado’s caseload centers on family-based immigration petitions — green cards, K-1 fiancé visas, and adjustment of status — alongside deportation defense, with particular experience representing immigrants whose cases are complicated by prior criminal convictions. That combination reflects a genuine secondary practice in criminal defense (also reported by Super Lawyers), which she uses specifically to understand how a conviction interacts with a client’s immigration status, rather than as a wholly separate line of business.

Track Record

What’s Documented

As with most immigration practices, no dollar-figure results table applies — immigration cases resolve in approvals, denials, or case outcomes, not settlements. What’s independently verifiable is her Florence Project pro bono recognition and her 2023–2024 Super Lawyers Rising Stars selection, a peer-nominated distinction limited to a small percentage of attorneys under a certain experience threshold each year.

Client Voice

Real, Named Reviews

Client reviews for Hurtado are consistently positive and specific. One reviewer, Brian J. Blanck, described the firm’s support through a K-1 visa and family-based green card process involving documents from Egypt as “immaculate,” praising both Hurtado and her paralegal by name. Another reviewer described a “smooth and stress-free” green card process and said they planned to return to the firm for the next stage of their case, the removal of conditions on a green card. We found no negative reviews to weigh against these; the sample size available is still modest.

Community

Documented Pro Bono Work, Not a Claim

Hurtado’s Florence Project Children’s Pro Bono Attorney of the Year award (2018) and her Chicanos Por La Causa recognition are both third-party-conferred distinctions for actual community work, not self-reported marketing. She also participates in the “PALE” program in coordination with the Consulate of Mexico in Phoenix, which connects the local Mexican community with legal education resources.

Recognition

Peer-Reviewed, With Real Pro Bono Depth

Hurtado was selected to Super Lawyers’ Rising Stars list for 2023 and 2024, a peer-nominated and research-driven distinction limited to attorneys generally under a certain years-of-practice threshold. No State Bar of Arizona Board of Legal Specialization certification applies to immigration law in Arizona, so this profile does not use the word “specialist” to describe her.

Arizona Legal Backdrop

Where Immigration Meets Criminal Law

Immigration law is federal, not state, but Arizona criminal convictions can trigger federal immigration consequences under the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. § 1227), including deportability for certain “crimes involving moral turpitude” or controlled-substance offenses. Post-conviction relief under Arizona Rule of Criminal Procedure 32 is sometimes used specifically to address an immigration-triggering conviction. None of this is legal advice; how a specific Arizona conviction interacts with immigration status is exactly the kind of fact-specific, cross-disciplinary question that requires an attorney fluent in both systems.

Awesome Attorneys Assessment

Hurtado’s practice occupies a genuine niche — immigrants whose cases are complicated by a criminal record are often turned away by immigration-only practices that don’t want to touch the criminal side, and by criminal-defense-only practices that don’t track immigration consequences. Her documented Florence Project pro bono work is a real credential, not a talking point. The honest limitation: this is a relatively young, single-attorney practice (admitted to the bar in 2014), so it won’t have the multi-decade track record of some more established firms in this category — a reasonable trade-off for clients who specifically need the criminal-immigration crossover expertise.

Methodology & Sourcing

Compiled from Vianey K. Hurtado Law’s website, Super Lawyers, Avvo, Justia, and the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project. No claim was taken from firm marketing without a second-source check where one existed. Compiled and verified August 2026.

Publisher Disclosure & Independence Notice

Awesome Attorneys is an independent legal directory and editorial publication. This profile was not paid for, commissioned, or reviewed by the firm prior to publication, and inclusion in this directory is not an endorsement of any outcome. Firms are added or excluded based on our own editorial verification process, not advertising relationships.