Terezakis Law Firm, PLLC

Focus and practice areas

Immigration and criminal defense are the two fields this firm works from its base in Mineola, New York, and it has represented clients since 1995. George A. Terezakis founded the firm, and he still owns and runs it. The two areas connect more often than they appear to on paper, and much of the firm's work sits where they meet.

The firm serves residents of Nassau, Suffolk, and Queens Counties, and it works with immigrants and their families across Long Island. That regional focus has a practical upside. The same courts and immigration offices recur, so a firm that appears in them week after week learns how they run.

The immigration work it handles

On the immigration side the firm covers a wide slate of matters. It handles family-based immigration, green card and lawful permanent residence applications, and adjustment of status. It files for naturalization and citizenship, and it prepares waivers of inadmissibility for clients who have a bar to clear. Asylum work sits here too.

Some of these are paper cases decided by an officer. Naturalization runs through an application, a background check, an interview, and a civics test before the oath. A waiver of inadmissibility asks the government to forgive a specific ground that would otherwise block a green card, and it turns on evidence of hardship to a qualifying relative.

Cases that go before a judge

Other matters run through immigration court, where the stakes climb. Cancellation of removal, bond proceedings, and appeals to the Board of Immigration Appeals all involve hearings, filing deadlines, and a government lawyer arguing the other side. In my opinion, the useful thing about one firm holding these cases is continuity, since the lawyer who knows the family history is the one who argues the hearing.

Family petitions move on a slower clock. A relative who is a citizen or a permanent resident usually files first, and the wait can run for years depending on the category and the country. A firm that keeps the file open through that wait can act quickly when a priority date finally comes current.

Criminal defense and its immigration stakes

The criminal practice covers misdemeanor and felony charges in the Nassau, Suffolk, and Queens County courts. It also takes traffic violations and post-conviction relief. Post-conviction work reaches back to older cases, where a client wants to vacate or reduce a conviction that still causes trouble.

The firm ties this work directly to immigration, and that link is the reason it belongs under the same roof. A guilty plea that looks small in criminal court can trigger removal for a non-citizen, so the firm weighs the immigration effect of a conviction before a client accepts any deal. George A. Terezakis names that overlap, the point where criminal and immigration law meet, as a central part of his practice.

That combined view shapes routine choices in a criminal case. A charge that a citizen might resolve with a quick plea can call for a different approach when the client holds a green card or a visa. The firm's immigration experience gives it a way to spot those consequences early, while there is still room to change course.

How the team is built

George A. Terezakis is the owner and an attorney. His practice concentrates on criminal and deportation defense, family-based immigration, and asylum. The firm states that he has defended clients in criminal and deportation proceedings for 35 years, and that he has been selected for Metro New York Super Lawyers.

Yesenia Maldonado is an associate attorney at the firm. She has also been selected for Metro New York Super Lawyers. Two attorneys carrying that selection is a fair signal for an office of this size, since the honor reaches a limited share of lawyers in the region each year.

The firm assigns each client both an attorney and a paralegal. As a reviewer, I read that as a statement about how the firm wants files run, with a named lawyer and a named support person on every case. It also gives a client two points of contact.

Language and client handling

The attorneys and paralegals speak Spanish and English. For an immigration practice on Long Island, bilingual staffing carries real weight. A client often handles the hardest moments of a case in the language they trust most, and a lawyer who shares that language gets clearer facts to work with.

Direct communication also cuts down on the small errors that slip in through translation. On an immigration form, a date or a name in the wrong place can slow a case for months, so plain talk between client and lawyer has practical value.

What the record shows

Continuity of ownership since 1995 tends to mean stable staff and steady procedures, and those help on cases that stretch over years. The firm's two-field focus is the through-line, since the immigration and criminal sides inform each other on the same file. In my opinion, that overlap is the clearest reason a mixed-status family might keep one firm for both kinds of trouble.

The verifiable points are simple. George A. Terezakis founded the firm and still runs it, both named attorneys hold a Metro New York Super Lawyers selection, the staff works in Spanish and English, and every client gets an attorney and a paralegal.