Professor Potts practices and teaches immigration and nationality law in the Chicago-Kent Law Offices. She focuses her practice on advising business entities, nonprofit organizations and individuals in all areas of immigration law. In particular, Professor Potts concentrates on business immigration, employer audits and protecting companies from employer sanctions. Prior to joining the Chicago-Kent faculty in June 2009, Professor Potts was an attorney for McGuiness, Norris and Williams, a Washington, D.C., law firm with a national immigration practice. For more than five years, she focused her practice exclusively on immigration and employment law. She has handled administrative immigration matters before the U.S. Department of Labor and various state labor agencies. In addition, she has represented clients in federal courts around the country, including in civil RICO litigation involving novel immigration claims, and has regularly provided counseling on immigration law compliance. As part of her practice in Washington, D.C., she routinely attended congressional hearings pertaining to controversial immigration issues. Most recently, Professor Potts was an attorney and community organizer for a nonprofit government watchdog organization, the Citizen Advocacy Center. While at the center, she monitored local government bodies for legal compliance with various state laws and engaged in extensive First Amendment advocacy. She published a book titled Accessing Government: How Difficult Is It? (Citizen Advocacy Center 2008) (with T. Pastika), a systemic overview of open government laws with recommended statutory and policy reforms for five Midwestern states. Professor Potts has been invited as a speaker by legal and community organizations, law schools and media workshops on a wide array of legal topics. She has served as a volunteer attorney for the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago, seeking immigration status adjustment for domestic abuse victims under the federal Violence Against Women Act. Professor Potts received her undergraduate degree from the University of Chicago, spent four years studying and teaching undergraduates in a political science Ph.D. program at Indiana University Bloomington and received her J.D. from Cornell Law School. As a Cuban-American attorney fluent in Spanish, she is a member of the National Hispanic Bar Association. She is also a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Professor Potts is licensed as an attorney in Illinois, the District of Columbia and Florida.
