About Us

Located in the heart of the downtown Chicago Loop, Maria Baldini-Potermin & Associates, P.C. specializes in immigration law, including complicated cases. Attorneys Ms. Baldini-Potermin, Katheryn Wasylik, and Julie Reiter Pellerite represent noncitizens in deportation defense, family-based immigration, employment-based immigration, asylum, consular processing, waivers of inadmissibility, citizenship and naturalization, federal court litigation and appeals, including petitions for review before the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

Ms. Baldini-Potermin is the founder of the firm.  She has been recognized as a Leading Lawyer in Illinois since 2004.  She is active in the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) on the local and national levels, and she has served on several committees.  In July 2010, Maria was the recipient of the Edith Lowenstein Award for Excellence in Advancing the Practice of Immigration Law from the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA).   In 2004, she was awarded the Chicago AILA Chapter's Minsky Mentor Award.  She served for two years (2008-2010) as the vice-chair of the national AILA-Executive Office for Immigration Review, which meets twice a year with the leadership of the Board of Immigration Appeals and Chief Office of the Immigration Judge.  She serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild.  She previously served as the Chair of the Chicago Bar Association’s Immigration Law Committee. 

Deportation Defense and

Immigration Consequences of Criminal Convictions

A frequent lecturer on deportation/removal defense, Ms. Baldini-Potermin is the author of Immigration Trial Handbookpublished annually by Thomson West.  She also serves as an expert author-consultant for Interpreter Releases, the leading weekly immigration periodical.  Her article, Past Persecution, Mental Illness and Humanitarian Asylum: Creating the Record to Win the Claim, published in 86 Interpreter Releases 261 (1/26/2009), © Thomson West, was recently included in the new section on mental health in removal proceedings (4/23/2010) for the Executive Office for Immigration Review's Immigration Judge Benchbook.

Ms. Baldini-Potermin has written extensively on the area of immigration law and crimes.  Her writings include manuals on the effects of criminal convictions for noncitizens in Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, and Wisconsin and articles for the Indiana Defender.  She is the author of Defending Non-Citizens in Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin (2009), the definitive work on immigration law and crimes within the jurisdiction of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.  Ms. Baldini-Potermin is also the update editor for Immigration Law & Crimes, by the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild, Dan Kesselbrenner, and Lory Rosenberg.  She is the author of a chapter in A Judges Guide to Immigration Law in Criminal Proceedings (American Bar Association, 2004).    

Employment-Based Immigration Cases

Attorney Katheryn Wasylik specializes in employment-based immigration cases.  She has extensive experience with nonimmigrant and immigrant visa petitions and applications before the U.S. Department of Labor, the USCIS and the U.S. consulates and embassies.

Ms. Wasylik represents employers interested in sponsoring foreign nationals for temporary work visas and/or permanent residency.  In addition to direct immigration services, she also advises employers in establishing I-9 compliance procedures and  provides guidance on documentation and employment eligibility issues that arise in the hiring or reverification process.

Family-Based Immigration Cases

All of the attorneys handle the various types of family-based immigration cases, including immigrant visa petitions, adjustment of status for permanent residence, consular processing for immigrant visas, joint and waiver petitions to remove conditions of residency, classifications under the Child Status Protection Act, self-petitions under the Violence Against Women Act, and visa petition appeals.