Stephanie McClure’s career has an unusual internal logic. She spent ten years at the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office in New Jersey, building criminal cases, rising to Supervising Trial Attorney quickly, and leading a Trial Team of prosecutors through an extensive caseload. Her personal load included homicides, elite SVU matters, domestic violence prosecutions, and serious felony trials. Her cases drew national media coverage. She secured hundreds of convictions on behalf of the state of New Jersey.
Then she left, founded SMC Law Group (f/k/a Law Office of Stephanie McClure), and spent the next decade tearing criminal convictions apart.
Not her own, to be clear. But the same category of case. She specifically targets guilty pleas entered under legally deficient attorney advice. The prosecutorial decade gave her something that most immigration attorneys lack, and most defense attorneys acquire only partially. She understands criminal proceedings from the inside, which means she understands precisely where they go wrong and what the record looks like when they do.
The Problem She Is Solving for Individuals and for Immigration Law Firms
For decades, criminal defense attorneys routinely advised noncitizen clients to accept plea deals without analyzing the immigration consequences of those deals. The sentence was minimal (or so the defendants thought), the case was resolved, and the immigration question was either not raised or was answered by defense counsel incorrectly. The Supreme Court ruled in 2010 that omissions of this type constitute “ineffective assistance of counsel,” and even prior to that, any misadvice about immigration would constitute ineffective assistance. The Supreme Court noted the problem, but the ruling did not undo the pleas. It only recognized a mechanism for challenging them and the importance of properly advising noncitizens.
That mechanism requires practitioners who can work across two legal systems and bodies of law, often simultaneously challenging a conviction in criminal court while defending against removal in immigration proceedings, under timelines that can compress to hours when a removal order is already active. Most attorneys are equipped for one side of that problem or the other. Few are equipped for both, and even fewer do both well and can kick into high-speed gear when it is critical to success.
McClure built her practice right there. Some examples highlight her work. In February 2026, her firm vacated a conviction that had been entered in 1983. The constitutional deficiency had sat in the record for forty-three years.
Another well-known victory involved actually stopping an erroneous prison transport bus mid-proceeding after her client was erroneously loaded onto the vehicle and successfully returning the matter to court, and obtaining a vacatur the following week. A third case example was resolved the day before a client’s deportation flight, after an emergency hearing challenged the underlying conviction and succeeded. The stories seem to have no end as ICE arrests continue daily without relenting.
The Credentials and the Second Business
McClure holds one of approximately 250 Certified Criminal Trial Attorney designations issued by the New Jersey Supreme Court, representing fewer than 1% of the state’s bar. She is licensed in New Jersey, New York, California, Massachusetts, and a list of federal courts across the country. She is a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association and serves on the State of New Jersey’s Office of Attorney Ethics – appointed by the judiciary itself. She’s been recognized by the bench with several awards for excellence in litigating highly complex matters involving mentally ill defendants, and for outstanding Pro Bono Service.
Since establishing her practice nearly ten years ago, and having lived in the NYC Metro area her entire life, McClure has deep roots in the fashion and arts industries. She has represented a number of household-name and red-carpet fashion designers in a variety of matters, and for years was asked by artists to assist in building their portfolios to qualify for a prestigious type of work visa. She recently separated her artistic and agency affairs by stepping out alongside partner Rebecca Eagleson to form Sid Moses Corp., an agency that creates merit-based O-1 visa pathways for international artists and creatives.
The O-1 category has developed a serious credibility problem over time, with résumé inflation and manufactured credentials common enough to create complications during renewals and subsequent proceedings. Now, more than ever, the current administration is seeking out fraudulent applications, and artists are seriously cautioned. Sid Moses is different. Built to assist immigration lawyers by a lawyer, Sid Moses Corp. builds applications on verifiable achievement, which require more preparation but produce results that hold up to scrutiny.
“There’s a right way to do this,” she says. “And it actually sets people up for long-term success.”
The clients who review her on Avvo tend to describe her in terms that go beyond professional competence. Trustworthy. Caring. An amazing human being. One wrote that she delivered an outcome he had been told was impossible, after more than a decade of trying. Another wrote that she was the first attorney to say she could help, and then did.
Both the law firm and the agency are built on the same premise. When someone has received inadequate legal advice and is living with the consequences, the correction requires precision, not a faster version of the same shortcut. That is, in condensed form, what McClure has been doing for two decades, in courts across the country, at whatever hour the call arrives. She unapologetically credits her work and success to her faith; “We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us,” she quotes without hesitation. I love a God who loves justice, and in serving my clients, I serve that purpose as well.
