ATTORNEY ADVERTISING NOTICE. This San Antonio immigration attorney profile was researched and written independently by Awesome Attorneys’ editorial team. It was not paid for, commissioned, or reviewed prior to publication by the firm profiled. All outcomes, credentials, and recognitions described below are attributed to their sources. Past results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome in any future matter. This article is for general information only and is not legal advice; reading it does not create an attorney–client relationship.

A San Antonio Immigration Attorney Who Left the Bench to Return to His Practice

Inside Salmon & Haas, the husband-and-wife San Antonio firm where Aaron Haas handles the immigration docket — a Harvard-educated, TBLS board-certified attorney who served an elected term as a Bexar County district judge before returning to private practice.

BY THE AWESOME ATTORNEYS EDITORIAL TEAM · SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS · AUGUST 2026

SALMON & HAAS — AT A GLANCE

Sources: salmonhaas.com (firm website), judgehaasmediation.com, Texas Board of Legal Specialization historical certification list, State Bar of Texas record, Avvo, Experience.com. Compiled August 2026.

ORIGIN

From Harvard to the Bexar County Bench and Back to a San Antonio Immigration Attorney Practice

Aaron Haas graduated from Harvard Law School in 2006, where he served as an editor of the Harvard Journal of International Law. Before founding his firm, he was a professor of immigration law and founding director of an immigration clinic at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia — academic credentials that predate and inform his current practice. He is licensed in both Texas (since 2006) and Virginia (since 2010).

In a career turn unusual among the San Antonio immigration attorneys in this directory, Haas was elected as judge of the 285th District Court in Bexar County, serving from January 2019 until his retirement from the bench on December 31, 2022. During that term he presided over thousands of civil cases spanning family law, personal injury, business litigation, and employment disputes, and handled dozens of jury trials. He returned to private practice at Salmon & Haas afterward and separately offers mediation services as a former district judge authorized to serve as a private judge.

Haas is Board Certified in Immigration and Nationality Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization — a credential Awesome Attorneys independently confirmed by cross-referencing a historical TBLS certification listing bearing his name, rather than relying on firm marketing or peer endorsements alone.

THE MODEL

A Husband-and-Wife San Antonio Immigration Attorney Practice

Salmon & Haas operates from a single San Antonio office. The firm is run by Aaron Haas and his wife, attorney Shannon Roberta Salmon-Haas; per multiple independent attorney directories, Aaron concentrates on immigration law while Shannon’s practice spans family and criminal matters, meaning clients specifically seeking immigration counsel should confirm they will be working directly with Aaron rather than the firm generally.

PRACTICE

Where This San Antonio Immigration Attorney Concentrates

Haas’s immigration practice covers asylum, citizenship and naturalization, deportation defense, family and marriage-based visas, green cards, immigration appeals, investment visas, student and visitor visas, and work visas — a broad general-immigration docket. His appellate litigation background, reflected in published Board of Immigration Appeals matters bearing his name, suggests genuine litigation depth beyond routine filings.

TRACK RECORD

What Can — and Cannot — Be Verified

As with immigration practice generally, there is no jury-verdict or settlement-figure record to report for the immigration docket specifically, and Awesome Attorneys did not have access to USCIS or immigration court case-level data. Separately, and unusually for this directory, Haas’s four years on the Bexar County civil district court bench are a matter of public record, independently confirmed through his own published judicial biography.

CLIENT VOICE

Positive but Limited, With One Unspecified Negative

Available reviews for the firm are largely positive: one client described Haas as extremely knowledgeable in immigration law after seeking his advice on multiple occasions, and another described a complex divorce-and-green-card case handled with quick, responsive communication. A fellow attorney’s endorsement described Haas as “Of Counsel” on immigration matters referred to him since 2003. Awesome Attorneys also found a brief, unelaborated negative comment (“extremely rude”) in the review record; without further detail from that reviewer, this profile discloses the existence of the comment rather than speculating about what it describes. The overall review volume is modest, and readers should weigh this record accordingly.

BEYOND THE PRACTICE

An Unusual Combination of Academic, Judicial, and Practice Credentials

Haas’s background combines a Harvard Journal of International Law editorship, a law school teaching post directing an immigration clinic, four years as an elected district judge, and current TBLS board certification — a combination of credentials this profile has not encountered elsewhere in the San Antonio immigration category. He is a member of the State Bar of Texas Immigration and Nationality Law Section and the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

RECOGNITION

A TBLS Certification Independently Confirmed

Aaron Haas’s Board Certification in Immigration and Nationality Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization is independently confirmed against a historical TBLS certification list bearing his name, not accepted from firm marketing or peer endorsements alone. Awesome Attorneys applies the words “board certified” and “specialist” to his immigration practice on that basis.

THE FEDERAL IMMIGRATION BACKDROP

What Texas Residents Should Know

Immigration law is federal, not state, law. Family-based and employment-based petitions are governed by the Immigration and Nationality Act and adjudicated by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, while removal proceedings and appeals run through the federal immigration courts and the Board of Immigration Appeals. San Antonio falls within the jurisdiction of the USCIS San Antonio Field Office and the San Antonio Immigration Court, with further appeals routing through the federal Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. This is distinct from the Texas state district courts where Haas formerly presided, which have no jurisdiction over immigration matters. None of this is legal advice; immigration status questions are consequential enough to warrant review by a licensed attorney based on the specific facts of a case.

AWESOME ATTORNEYS ASSESSMENT

An Unusually Credentialed San Antonio Immigration Attorney, With a Modest Public Review Record

Aaron Haas’s combination of a Harvard legal education, an immigration-clinic teaching background, genuine TBLS board certification, and four years of elected judicial service is a distinctive credential set among the firms covered in this directory. The honest limitation is that the practice is structured around a husband-and-wife division of labor, meaning clients should confirm directly that their matter routes to Aaron rather than the firm’s broader family-and-criminal practice, and the public review volume, while positive, is not large enough to draw sweeping conclusions from. Readers can compare this firm against other San Antonio attorneys in the Awesome Attorneys directory.

This is a firm best suited to clients seeking a board-certified immigration attorney with genuine litigation and appellate depth, particularly for complex or contested matters, who are comfortable confirming intake specifics with a small, husband-and-wife practice.

METHODOLOGY & SOURCING

This San Antonio immigration attorney profile draws on the firm’s own website (salmonhaas.com), Aaron Haas’s separate mediation-service biography (judgehaasmediation.com), a historical Texas Board of Legal Specialization certification list, his State Bar of Texas record, and Avvo and Experience.com reviews as of August 2026. Board certification and judicial service were each independently verified against sources beyond firm marketing. Awesome Attorneys did not have access to USCIS case-level data and makes no claim about the firm’s approval rate. Client reviews quoted or summarized reflect individual client experiences, not verified case outcomes.

PUBLISHER DISCLOSURE & INDEPENDENCE

Awesome Attorneys is an independent legal directory and editorial publication. This profile was not paid for, commissioned, or reviewed by Salmon & Haas prior to publication, and its inclusion here does not constitute an endorsement. Awesome Attorneys may in the future offer sponsored placements to firms profiled in its directory; sponsorship does not alter the editorial content of an existing profile.