Cora Tekach ’91 Honored with Milstein Award for Professional Excellence
Feb. 5, 2021
Cora Tekach '91 — nationally recognized immigration lawyer, author, and professor — has been named the 2021 recipient of American University Washington College of Law's Elliott Milstein Award for Professional Excellence.
The Milstein Award, which honors AUWCL Clinic Program founder Professor Emeritus Elliott Milstein, is bestowed annually upon an alumnus/a of the Clinical Program whose lawyering skills and values embody the highest standards of the profession, and whose career reflects core principles of the Clinical Program, including client-centeredness, reflective lawyering, seeking justice, and a commitment to training law students and junior lawyers.
"I could not be more thrilled to be the recipient of the Milstein Award! The WCL Clinical Program, specifically the International Human Rights Law Clinic founded and directed by Rick Wilson, has been essential to the dedication and highest standards of representation that I have been able to employ over the many years of my career to serve immigrants in search of safety and a better life," Tekach said.
Tekach will be honored during the annual Clinical Program Alumni Gathering and Milstein Award Ceremony on Thursday, Feb. 11. RSVP here.
Tekach is the founder of Tekach Law Firm in Washington, DC and was named a SuperLawyer in 2019, 2020 and 2021. She has devoted her professional career to immigration law and immigrants’ rights, beginning her legal journey with a public interest organization representing immigration detainees on the Texas/Mexico border. Prior to Tekach founding her law firm in 2008, she also worked at an international law firm and was a shareholder with immigration boutique Maggio & Kattar. From 2003-2005, Tekach worked for the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) as a liaison between AILA’s membership and U.S. government officials. Tekach also served as an adjunct professor of law at the Catholic University of America from 2005-2014 and at the Washington College of Law from 2016-2018.
Along with serving on the Board of Directors of Ayuda, Inc., Tekach has served on a number of AILA committees and is a former Chair of the Washington, DC Chapter of AILA. Tekach also served as a member of the DC Bar Client Security Fund for four years, including Chair of the committee in 2014.
Tekach is the annual editor of The Immigration Act of 1990 Today, a leading treatise on immigration and nationality law, has authored and edited many other publications on immigration law, and has presented immigration topics to governmental and professional organizations, embassies, student associations, churches, and immigrant groups as well as on television, radio, and other media.
Among her many acts of service to the community, Tekach spent 10 years as a member of the Board of Directors of Rosemount Center/El Centro Rosemount, a dual language Head Start/Early Head Start Center located in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood DC. She has also served as an advisor to the Hermanas Unidas (Sisters United) Community Education Project, the country’s first grassroots leadership development, community education, and empowerment project for Latina survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault and human trafficking.