Red Mass and Reception

Royal F. Berg is a graduate of Bradley University, and the John Marshall Law School. He is a sole practitioner, who has practiced immigration law in Chicago since 1984. He has served as the Co-Chair of the Human Rights Committee of the Chicago Bar Association, and of the Litigation Committee of the Chicago Chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. (AILA). He served for six years as an elected Director of the Board of Governors of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA). He also served for three years as the Chair of the Liaison between AILA and the Executive Office for Immigration Review, and as a member of AILA’s Liaison Committee with the General Counsel of the (former) Immigration and Naturalization Service. Mr. Berg has also served as the Chair of the Greater Chicago Chapter of AILA, and as Chair of the Immigration and Nationality Law Committee of the Chicago Bar Association. He is a founding Board Member of Immigrants’ List, a pro-immigrant, pro-immigration political action committee formed in 2006. He is also a Board member of the Farm Workers and Landscapers Advocacy Project and the Illinois Coalition to Abolish the Death penalty.

Prior to going into private practice, Mr. Berg was the Legal Services Administrator of the Chicago Office of Travelers and Immigrants Aid, (now called the National Immigrant Justice Center.) He has received two President’s Awards for his service nationally to AILA and received the Joseph Minsky Beacon of Light Award from AILA’s Chicago Chapter. He was the first recipient of the Edward Lewis Award from the Chicago Bar Association, honoring him for his pro bono work. He has also been honored for his service to Chicago Volunteer Legal Services, Corp. He is a recipient of the Gaudium et Spes and the Road to Emmaus Awards from the Archdiocese of Chicago, and the Pax et Bonum Award from St. Peter’s Church in the Loop. He has also been honored for his fundraising for the March of Dimes, and is a Fellow of the Illinois Bar Foundation. He has also served as Justice of the Chicago Alumni Chapter of Phi Alpha Delta Law Fraternity International.

Mr. Berg is a frequent lecturer and author in the field of immigration law. He has been a guest speaker at two national conferences of the United States Immigration Judges. Mr. Berg has represented immigrants and refugees in a number of complex cases litigated before the Immigration Court, the Board of Immigration Appeals, the United States District Court, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. He is also admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court. Mr. Berg represented Janina Wasilewski for her immigration case, which was depicted in the award winning documentary “Tony and Janina’s American Wedding-A Deportation Love Story.”