Englewood Mayor Michael Wildes will join the Columbia Law School faculty this fall, adding another classroom to a career spanning immigration law, public service, and legal education.
Wildes, the managing partner of Wildes & Weinberg, will teach a course on business immigration, visas, workforce and compliance law. He will continue teaching two courses at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, where he has served as an adjunct professor for 15 years.
A 1989 Cardozo graduate, Wildes has practiced immigration law for nearly four decades. His firm was founded in 1960 by his father, Leon Wildes, whose representation of John Lennon and Yoko Ono helped shape modern immigration law.
Wildes has represented corporate executives, artists, athletes, Nobel Prize winners and heads of state, along with thousands of immigrants seeking to live and work in the United States. His clients have included Melania Trump, Pelé, Mike Tyson, Dolly Parton, Lionel Richie, Gisele Bündchen and Millie Bobby Brown.
Before entering private practice, Wildes served as a federal prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York from 1989 to 1993. He later testified before Congress on anti-terrorism immigration legislation and has worked as immigration counsel to Lincoln Center and Yeshiva University.
Wildes is currently serving his fifth term as Englewood’s mayor. He has also written two books on immigration law, including Safe Haven in America: Battles to Open the Golden Door, published in 2018. His second book, From Origin to Opportunity: Unlocking U.S. Immigration Law, is scheduled for release this fall.
At Columbia, Wildes will offer students a practitioner’s view of the rapidly changing legal and policy landscape surrounding immigration, drawing on his experience in law, government, and elected office.