Lives of Consequence
Angela J. Marinucci Schnell '06, Esq.
Associate Attorney, Berardi Immigration Law
As an immigration attorney, Angela Schnell ’06 has spent her career working to help people who have just arrived in the U.S. take their next steps toward their dream.
“I like working in immigration because you’re helping someone achieve their goals,” Schnell says. “Each case is new and different, making the work always interesting and ending happily.”
A former litigator in U.S. immigration courts, Schnell began her career representing individuals facing deportation and seeking asylum. Currently an associate attorney with Berardi Immigration Law based in Buffalo, N.Y., Schnell advises clients in numerous aspects of immigration law, including non-immigrant visas, family and employment-based green cards, criminal waivers and NAFTA matters. She also regularly represents clients at the Peace Bridge port-of-entry in Buffalo to present their cases to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Schnell graduated from Hobart and William Smith Colleges with degrees in public policy and political science. While attending the Colleges, she spent a semester abroad in Germany, Hungary and Romania, and a semester in Washington, D.C. working in a New York State Senator’s office. Prior to attending law school, she served as a corporate paralegal with several large firms in Washington, D.C.
While earning her J.D. from American University’s Washington College of Law, Schnell served as publications editor for the Journal of Gender, Social Policy, and the Law and published an article titled, “But I Love Him! Why the Sixth Circuit Erred in Thompson v. North American Stainless, LP by Denying a Third Party Retaliation Claim Under Title VII.” She was named a Marshall-Brennan scholar, taught Youth Rights to D.C. public high school students and earned honors in pro bono service for her volunteer legal work.
After graduating from American University, Schnell clerked at a nonprofit juvenile rights firm in Portland, Ore. She then moved to Buffalo and worked as an immigration attorney at Berger & Berger before joining Berardi Immigration Law. Schnell is a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.