JAVAD M. KHAZAELI

Founding Member

Javad’s practice focuses on litigation, immigration and business advice for small to medium sized businesses. Javad is the only private bar attorney in America that has served in senior immigration positions in both the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Labor.

Javad spent nine years with the Department of Justice and then the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, National Security Law Division. While with the federal government, Javad used his expertise in immigration law to prosecute terrorists, terrorist financiers, and aliens engaged in espionage and other criminal acts. Javad worked closely with federal, state and international law enforcement and intelligence agencies. He is well versed in high profile, complex litigations. Javad now uses those skills to help companies and would be immigrants in their dealings with the federal government.

While in law school, Javad was selected to spend his final semester working in Washington, D.C., for Missouri Senator Jean Carnahan. Upon his graduation, Javad was accepted into the federal government’s Presidential Management Fellows program, a prestigious two-year fellowship at a government agency that provides extensive leadership and policy training.

Javad lives in the Shaw neighborhood with his wife Mollie and their daughters Nayda and Zora. Mollie works at large St. Louis based law firm. Javad and Mollie’s wedding included a tour of world’s largest brewery, Ted Drewes frozen custard, a midnight Imo’s pizza bar and Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’. They currently live in a rehabbed 125-year-old home in the Shaw neighborhood.

 

EDUCATION

Washington School of Law – J.D. (2002); Congressional and Administrative Law Clinic
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign – B.S., Biology and Psychology (1998)

LEGAL BACKGROUND

Partner, Cantwell & Cantwell (2013-2014)
Certifying Officer, U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Foreign Labor Certification (2010-2013)
Associate Legal Advisor, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, National Security Law Division (2004-2010)
Presidential Management Fellow, U.S. Department of Justice, Immigration and Naturalization Service, National Security Unit (2003)

PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS AND COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT

Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis 
International Institute St. Louis, Community Development Board
Kegs for Kids Benefitting Toys for Tots
Migrant & Immigrant Community Action (MICA) Project Advisor
Phi Sigma Kappa Foundation, Executive Board
Road to Status
South City Preparatory Academy, Board

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS AND PRESS

• U.S. Changes Mind About Deporting Farmington, Mo., Woman, St. Louis Post-Dispatch (June 23, 2014)
• How Municipalities in St. Louis County, Mo., Profit from Poverty., Washington Post (September 3, 2014)

ADMISSIONS AND DISTINCTIONS

Missouri Bar 2002
Illinois Bar 2012
EOIR