Alexander Vernon Email and Phone Number

Professor Alexander Vernon directs the Immigration Law Clinic at the University of Detroit Mercy, where students assist people fleeing for their lives, struggling for family unity, and striving to regularize their status in the United States. UDM clinical students gain valuable legal training working with clients participating in immigration hearings, and administrative interviews, and interacting with practicing attorneys for guidance and collaboration on cases. Professor Vernon’s students pursue a wide range of relief including asylum, humanitarian parole, cancellation of removal, prosecutorial discretion, and relief for crime victims and unaccompanied minors. Professor Vernon has practiced exclusively in immigration law, with prior experience with several firms in the Detroit area, as well as fours years of clinical teaching at the Ave Maria School of Law, before returning to Detroit to direct UDM’s clinic.

Alex Vernon comes to Ave Maria School of Law after six years of private practice in law firms in southeast Michigan, where his practice area focused on immigration law. Born in Jamaica, and then raised in Canada, professor Vernon attended St. Michael’s College at The University of Toronto, earning a B.A. in Political Science with a Christianity & Culture minor. He is also an alumnus of Ave Maria School of Law, and was very active in the Asylum and Immigration Rights Clinic during his time as a student at AMSL, as well as serving as President of the Lex Vitae Society and earning the St. Ives Medallion for defense of the Catholic moral and social order. Professor Vernon is also a past president of the Ave Maria School of Law Alumni Association. Fluent in both French and English, Professor Vernon served a wide variety of clients in complex and varying types of immigration cases. As a member of the law school’s clinical faculty, Professor Vernon teaches Advanced Clinical Law and the Asylum Law Clinic.

Ave Maria School of Law's Clinical Programs provide students with practical experience, which is valuable as they transition to the practice of law. Students enrolled in clinical courses interview clients, conduct legal research, develop legal strategies, and learn to practice law as part of a legal team. Working closely with clinical faculty members, students receive guidance and direction, while maintaining a degree of autonomy.In the Asylum and Immigrant Rights Law Clinic, students represent clients in Immigration Court and before officers of the US Citizenship and Immigration Service. Skills developed include: brief drafting, motion practice, fact investigation, interviewing, research in federal laws and regulations and foreign country conditions, direct examination expertise, and closing argument preparation.

Alexander Gibson (Alex) Vernon, Esq., has practiced exclusively in Immigration Law since he was admitted to the Bar in 2005. While a student at the Ave Maria School of Law, Alex had extensive clinical experience practicing before the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service and Detroit Immigration Court, where he had successful Asylum claims and Battered Spouse self-petitions. He remains involved in pro-bono advocacy, taking on cases referred from various non-profit agencies. Alex has also represented clients before the Board of Immigration Appeals, the United States District Courts, and the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. Alex is fluent in French, well traveled, and a life-long intercultural learner.

Immigration Law Practice