Wildes & Weinberg P.C. Senior and Founding Partner Leon Wildes discusses what motivated him to create The Wildes Family Scholarship at The Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. The scholarship hopes to afford qualified students the opportunity to attend Cardozo, notwithstanding the financial cost of such an education, and at the same time perpetuating the school’s high standards of excellence and dedication to values.
Mr. Wildes explains that “the establishment of The Wildes Family Scholarship is the fulfillment of a life-long dream”. While balancing a budding law career, Mr. Wildes became an Adjunct Professor of Immigration Law at Cardozo, a position he held for nearly 30 years before passing the baton to his son and partner, Michael Wildes, who just completed his third year of teaching Business Immigration Law.
During his second year of teaching, Mr. Wildes realized that he wished to help develop Cardozo into a school committed to doing good and pursing justice for all while simultaneously instilling these same values into his family. His son Michael, (Cardozo class of ’89) has successfully followed his fathers footsteps professionally and has served his community on a local level as a city council man and mayor of his hometown, Englewood, NJ. Michael even met his wife Amy (Class of ’91) at Cardozo and together they work hard to perpetuate the ideals of their father. Mr. Wildes son Mark, also a graduate of Cardozo (Class of ’92), is a prominent outreach Rabbi in New York City, having established Manhattan Jewish Experience, a house of worship and learning center for unaffiliated Jewish 20 and 30 year olds.
Today, the firm of Wildes & Weinberg, which maintains offices in New York City, New York, Englewood, New Jersey, and Miami, Florida, continues to maintain its stellar reputation in the field of U.S. Immigration & Nationality Law. This reputation stems in part due to Mr. Leon Wildes’ successful representation of former Beatle John Lennon in his widely publicized deportation proceedings, the circumstances of which have inspired several films and documentaries.
Over the past 50 years, the firm has concentrated its practice in all aspects of U.S. immigration and nationality law, servicing the immigration needs of prominent American and International firms, banks, industrial, financial and manufacturing concerns and law firms in connection with the personnel needs of their foreign national employees. In addition, the firm has a distinguished clientele and have done substantial immigration work for performing artists, directors, writers, models, actors/actresses, athletes, fine artists, art dealers, curators, and literary agents.
