A Dublin-based law firm that represents immigrants is suing the law firm that sued it earlier this month in federal court.
The original lawsuit filed by Columbus-based lawyer Inna Simakovsky claimed the Lisinski Law Firm was running a filing mill with cases with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency containing false information about its clients. Angel Lisinski, who leads the firm, denied those claims in an interview with WOSU.
Simakovsky's firm on behalf of one of Lisinski's former clients, Eva Acevedo Ortega of Colorado, sued Lisinski, claiming Lisinski's firm filed cases for legal immigration status that used exaggerated stories of clients' experiences.
The potential class action lawsuit also claimed Lisinski never meet with some clients and instead had them meet with a sales team. The suit claims that the Lisinski firm concealed from clients that their immigration petitions were self-petitions requiring allegations of domestic abuse or extreme cruelty, or applications that required allegations of forced labor or involuntary servitude, among other things.
Lisinski is now suing Simakovsky and others for defamation in federal court alongside Michigan-based attorneys James Betzold and Roberto Alvarez and an online content creator Camila Overmyer, of Indiana.
Lisinski's lawsuit said Overmyer hosted the lawyers on her social media channels where she accused Lisinski of being a fraud. The lawsuit said Lisinski's office received more than 475 calls from clients concerned about Overmyer's statements and a website Overmyer allegedly created to report fraud.
Lisinski said her large firm works with tens of thousands of clients. She accuses these other lawyers of trying to poach her clients.
"Their whole goal is to cause the immigrant community to fear their attorneys, to think that we're doing something wrong, to believe that if they continue on with our representation that they themselves will be in trouble, to convince them to leave their legitimate cases," Lisinski said.
Lisinski said her lawsuit is seeking damages because some clients are abandoning their cases.
"There is fear, panic, confusion that is causing the undocumented community to abandon legitimate immigration cases. And in many cases, this will be their last opportunity or their only realistic opportunity to legalize their status," Lisinski said.
A spokesperson with Simakovsky's office called the lawsuit retaliatory and said the firm is focused on helping its clients.
"Our office does not have a comment on the retaliatory lawsuit that Ms. Lisinski filed. We frankly do not have time to comment on any attempted distractions from our work of representing immigrants facing imminent deportation due to various problems and deficiencies with their USCIS filings," the statement said.
