The Law Offices of Cheryl R. David: The Removal-Defense Lawyer Other Immigration Lawyers Use

Attorney Advertising. The information on this profile does not constitute legal advice and no attorney-client relationship is formed by reading it. Past results described do not guarantee similar outcomes.

An immigration attorney with thirty years of practice — including years inside the old INS — published this endorsement of Cheryl David: whenever he has a difficult removal case in the New York area, he refers it to her. That is the standing her career has built. Queens-born, the daughter of a South Bronx teacher who taught English to new immigrants at night, David has practiced immigration law since 1995, chaired AILA’s New York chapter, served six years on its National Board of Governors, and chaired the association’s national liaison committees to both ICE and the immigration courts — while running a 299 Broadway practice whose clients describe decade-long fights won and thirteen-year problems solved in two months.

At a Glance

Firm	The Law Offices of Cheryl R. David
Principal Attorney	Cheryl R. David, Esq.
Office	299 Broadway, Suite 706, New York, NY 10007 (lower Manhattan)
Focus	Immigration and nationality law — deportation and removal defense as a nationally recognized concentration, complicated family-based cases, naturalization, employment immigration, and temporary visas
Credentials	B.A., SUNY Albany; J.D., Western New England College School of Law; practicing immigration law since 1995; AV Preeminent peer-review rated; early career at Bretz & Coven, LLP
AILA Leadership	Chair, AILA New York Chapter (2006); Director, National Board of Governors (2007–2013); Chair, National AILA/ICE Liaison Committee (2007–2010); Chair, National AILA/EOIR Liaison Committee (2010–2012); Chair, AILA NY ICE Detention & Removal Committee; founder, AILA NY juvenile pro bono committee with EOIR; AILA Department of State national committee (2018–2020)
Other Service	Board of Directors, ASISTA (2016–2022), supporting advocates for immigrant survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault; Federal Bar Association immigration committee; NYC Bar Fund board (2007–2013)
Recognition	Super Lawyers every year since 2007; “Women Super Lawyer” since 2014; Best Lawyers since 2012, with peer selection among the top five immigration lawyers in New York
Fee Structure	By consultation

Career History

David’s origin story is the practice’s DNA: born and raised in Queens, daughter of an elementary-school teacher who taught English as a Second Language to new immigrants in South Bronx evenings and who always wanted her daughter to become an immigration lawyer. Her first job was at a small firm in Jackson Heights — the borough’s immigrant crossroads — and her formative years came at Bretz & Coven, the removal-defense powerhouse, where she began the AILA involvement that became a parallel career: chairing the New York chapter in 2006, chairing its ICE detention and removal committee, founding its juvenile pro bono committee with the immigration courts, then rising to the National Board of Governors for six years and chairing the association’s national liaison committees to ICE and to the Executive Office for Immigration Review — the formal channels through which the immigration bar negotiates practice conditions with the enforcement agency and the courts themselves. She lectures nationally and internationally on removal and complicated family-based cases, and served six years on the board of ASISTA, the national resource center for attorneys representing immigrant survivors of domestic and sexual violence.

Practice Concentration

The signature concentration is the hard end: deportation and removal defense — the docket on which a thirty-year veteran of the field publicly stakes his referrals on her — and the complicated family-based cases she lectures on nationally. Around them runs a complete practice: naturalization, employment immigration, and temporary visas, with the firm’s stated approach being continuing advice, advocacy, and support through processes that run years. The ASISTA board service maps onto genuine survivor-protection capability (VAWA and related remedies), and the juvenile pro bono committee she founded reflects the children’s-docket experience that work implies.

Track Record

The client-published record is vivid in its arcs: a green card obtained in two months after the client’s thirteen years of struggle and a prior lawyer’s neglect; a ten-year fight in which, when the client was ready to give up, David stuck with it and won; a deportation case turned into a green card; and a case its own client calls toxic — tangled by countless prior lawyers — mapped and won beyond expectation. These are client accounts published by the firm and review platforms, attributed as such; this research did not independently verify individual outcomes. Past results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome in any future case.

Client Voice

The review record pairs client warmth with the rarer currency: named peer endorsement. Clients describe a team — staff members are repeatedly credited by name — that treats urgent cases with urgency and sets timeline expectations that hold; one writes simply that she is “a WINNER that can make the impossible, POSSIBLE.” The peer record is stronger still: the published referral endorsement from a thirty-year practitioner, the AV Preeminent rating, and the peer votes placing her among New York’s top five immigration lawyers. This research did not surface any public disciplinary findings.

Beyond the Courtroom

David’s institutional service is a second career: the national liaison chairmanships through which the bar itself engages ICE and the immigration courts; the juvenile pro bono committee she founded; six years governing ASISTA’s support network for survivors’ advocates; the City Bar Fund board; and her continuing national and international lecturing. Few practitioners in any city have shaped the field’s working machinery from as many seats.

Recognition

Sorting per our standard: the AILA National Board of Governors seat and national liaison chairmanships are elected and appointed peer-institutional offices — the field’s own governance; the AV Preeminent rating is Martindale’s highest peer-review tier; the Super Lawyers selections (annually since 2007) and Best Lawyers votes (since 2012, including the top-five peer selection) are peer-informed recognitions from commercial publications with published methodology; and the thirty-year practitioner’s referral endorsement is peer recognition in its most practical form. No marketing-program awards are claimed, and none are attributed. A disclosure we apply to every New York profile: New York State does not operate a board certification program for legal specialties comparable to the Texas Board of Legal Specialization, so no New York attorney profile on this site will describe its subject as a state-certified specialist, and this profile attributes no certification to David.

New York Legal Backdrop

Immigration law is federal, and this attorney’s career has run through its institutional plumbing. The liaison committees she chaired exist because removal practice is shaped as much by agency behavior as by statute: how ICE exercises detention and prosecutorial discretion, how the immigration courts calendar and conduct proceedings — the operational realities the bar negotiates through exactly the AILA/ICE and AILA/EOIR channels she led. On the docket itself: removal proceedings are civil, with no appointed counsel, and outcomes turn on relief eligibility — cancellation of removal, adjustment, waivers, protection claims — where representation quality is decisive, especially for detained respondents. Complicated family cases layer prior denials, old orders, and multi-lawyer histories that must be untangled before any path forward exists, the rescue work her client accounts describe. Survivors’ remedies — VAWA self-petitions, U visas — carry confidentiality protections and evidentiary demands that trauma-informed practice serves best, the capability her ASISTA service reflects. None of this is legal advice; consult a licensed immigration attorney about your situation.

Awesome Attorneys Assessment

The case for the Law Offices of Cheryl R. David is peer-certified mastery of immigration’s hardest work: three decades of removal-defense practice that the field’s own veterans route their difficult cases to, national institutional leadership across the bar’s governance and its agency liaisons, survivor-protection depth backed by board service, an AV Preeminent rating, an eighteen-year Super Lawyers streak, and client arcs — decade-long fights won, abandoned cases rescued — that match the reputation.

The honest trade-offs, stated plainly: this is a boutique practice whose value concentrates in its principal, with the capacity and succession considerations that implies; the client-published results are accounts rather than a ledger, as is standard in this field; the practice’s center of gravity is defensive and family-side rather than corporate — large employment programs will find differently built firms in this directory; and rescue cases of the kind this practice is known for are inherently long engagements, a timing reality to understand at intake.

Methodology & Sourcing

This profile was researched and written independently by Awesome Attorneys in August 2026 without the participation, sponsorship, or payment of the Law Offices of Cheryl R. David. Primary sources: the firm’s website (cheryldavidlaw.com), including its home, attorney-profile, and reviews pages (the practice scope and service philosophy; the AILA leadership chronology including the National Board of Governors, ICE and EOIR national liaison chairmanships, and Department of State committee; the ASISTA board service 2016–2022; the SUNY Albany and Western New England education; the national and international lecturing; the client accounts quoted in Track Record and Client Voice). Independent verification: her published biography for a national CLE program (the Queens upbringing and family history; the Jackson Heights first job; the Bretz & Coven years; the 2006 New York chapter chairmanship; the 1995 practice start; the peer-vote recognitions including the top-five Best Lawyer selection); Super Lawyers profile (the 2007–2025 selection streak; the 1995 admission); Avvo profile (the reelection to the National Board of Governors; the thirty-year practitioner’s referral endorsement quoted in the opening; the thirteen-year green-card client account); directory listings (the 299 Broadway, Suite 706 address; the AV Preeminent rating; the child-of-immigrants framing). The federal-law framework in the Legal Backdrop reflects the Immigration and Nationality Act’s public provisions.

Publisher Disclosure & Independence Notice

Awesome Attorneys is an independent legal-directory publisher. This profile was not paid for by the Law Offices of Cheryl R. David, and inclusion in our editorial coverage cannot be purchased. Our methodology and editorial standards are applied consistently across all firms we cover.