Susan Marks, Partnerships & Engagement Manager

Susan Marks is the Pro Bono Legal Manager at Catholic Charities.

Susan specializes in building new pro bono programs from the ground up: identifying a service need, developing a vision, launching fledgling projects, and strengthening them over time.

Susan grounds her work in innovation and dynamism, volunteer engagement and relationship-building.

Prior to her current role, Susan worked at the American Immigration Lawyers Association where she managed AILA’s pro bono presence for more than a decade, working with attorneys, community-based organizations, large law firms, law schools, embassies, consulates and other constituents.  Susan’s work responded to both ongoing and emergent pro bono project management needs, including AILA’s family detention pro bono projects in Artesia, New Mexico, and Dilley, Texas.  The Artesia Pro Bono Project utilized an innovative new pro bono model and was an intensive round-the-clock effort to recruit, train and coordinate volunteer resources to provide pro bono immigration legal assistance to women and children detained in a remote facility and effectively denied access to counsel.

Susan graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 2000 and from CUNY School of Law in 2006. She is admitted to practice in New York.

Evelyn Rodriguez, Volunteer Coordinator

Evelyn is the Volunteer Coordinator at Catholic Charities.

Prior to becoming a Volunteer Coordinator, Evelyn was a Migration Assistant for the Community Legal Clinics project (CLC). While working with CLC, Evelyn was in charge of providing administrative support for attorneys, scheduling clients for legal clinics that would take place in the Lower Hudson Valley and on several occasions providing application assistance to clients such as filling out Asylum and Work Authorization applications.

During her time as an assistant, Evelyn also participated and worked with the Immigration Court Helpdesk project to provide screening and/or interpreter assistance at the NYC immigration courts where newly arrivals would receive free legal consultations at Catholic Charities.

Evelyn Rodriguez graduated from John Jay College of Criminal Justice with a Bachelor’s degree in English and a minor in Journalism & Digital Media in 2021. Apart from dedicating her time with Catholic Charities and to the immigrant community, Evelyn enjoys reading books in her free time, discovering new cafes/ food spots, and baking sweet treats.

Keighly Rector, Supervising Attorney

Keighly Rector, Esq. is a supervising attorney with Catholic Charities Community Services, Archdiocese of New York (CCCS), where she mentors pro bono attorneys, supervises in-house staff, and represents clients in a range of immigration matters.

In addition to her role at CCCS, Keighly also sits on the Executive Committee for the Connecticut Chapter of AILA (American Immigration Lawyers Association) and serves as the Attorney Wellbeing Chapter Liaison, serves on the Advisory Board for Quinnipiac University’s Legal Studies Program, and regularly guest lectures at Quinnipiac University School of Law on trauma-informed lawyering and immigration law.

Keighly has been practicing law for over seven years, advocating for vulnerable populations, including immigrants, crime victims, survivors of intimate partner violence, and abused and neglected children. Utilizing tenants of trauma-informed care, Keighly takes a client-centered approach to direct representation that promotes collaboration, empowerment, and holistic responses to the complex needs of survivors.

Keighly graduated magna cum laude from Quinnipiac University in 2011 with a B.A. in Legal Studies and Spanish. She obtained her J.D. from the Elizabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University in 2014, cum laude. Keighly is admitted in both New York and Connecticut.

Liane Aronchick, Managing Attorney for Community Legal Programs 

Liane Aronchick is the Managing Attorney for Community Legal Programs at Catholic Charities.

 She began as a Pro Bono Supervising Attorney for Catholic Charities nascent pro bono program in 2017.  

Previously, Liane was the Senior Pro Bono Coordinating Attorney at Kids in Need of Defense, and a staff attorney at Human Rights First in New York, where she represented Central American families and children in removal proceedings, and mentored pro bono attorneys in pursuing asylum and SIJS for their clients. 

Liane spent four and a half years on defense teams representing individuals charged with international human rights violations in The Hague, Netherlands, both at the International Criminal Court and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Before moving to The Hague, Liane served as a clinical intern and of counsel at Catholic Charities’ Department of Immigrant and Refugee Services, where she pursued family based petitions, T/U-visas, asylum and other relief for clients.

Liane served in the Peace Corps in Quito, Ecuador from 2003 to 2006, where she spearheaded a number of adult literacy, anti-domestic violence, and anti-trafficking-in-persons campaigns.

She graduated from Barnard College in 2003 and graduated from St. John’s University School of Law in 2009. She is admitted to practice in New York.

Amy Guar, Pro Bono Supervising Attorney

Amy is the Pro Bono Supervising Attorney at Catholic Charities.

Amy graduated from the University of Maryland in 2009 and from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in 2012.

Before joining Catholic Charities, Amy worked for the HIV Law Project, where she represented New Yorkers living with HIV in an array of immigration cases, including defensive and affirmative asylum, VAWAs, U visas, and family-based petitions.  Amy also worked for CAMBA Legal Services, where she primarily represented survivors of domestic violence in their immigration cases, both at CAMBA and the Brooklyn Family Justice Center.

Amy lived in Nice, France for several years, where she worked for a Non Governmental Organization (NGO) that focused on human trafficking-related issues. She collaborated with other NGOs on European-Union funded projects, which included in-depth research on trafficked persons’ needs and the gaps between legislation and practices. She also worked for transatlantic law firm, McAllister Olivarius, in the United Kingdom, which focuses on addressing gender-based violence and discrimination. She led the implementation of an innovative web-based practice for image-based sexual abuse survivors.

Julie Silvia, Special Projects Supervising Attorney

Julie Silvia is a Special Projects Supervising Attorney at Catholic Charities, where she assesses and provides mentorship on cases for pro bono representation, specializing in cases involving immigrant youth who face legal challenges in both family court and immigration court. Julie joined the Pro Bono Project in 2020. Her work focuses on increasing citywide pro bono capacity to represent immigrant youth at Catholic Charities.

From 2017 until 2020, Julie worked with team of two attorneys and six paralegals at Catholic Charities as a part of the ActionNYC in Schools Project, a collaboration with the NYC Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs and a host of New York City non-profits. Through ActionNYC in Schools (one of the only municipal programs nation-wide offering regular immigration legal help at schools), Julie implemented programming to deliver weekly, onsite legal supervision and representation to immigrant students and their families citywide, covering the largest school district in the country.

Prior to her work at Catholic Charities, Julie represented immigrant farm workers seeking immigration benefits, including victims of serious crimes and domestic violence, as a Staff Attorney at small non-profit in California’s Central Valley. From 2015-2016, she worked in private immigration practice in New York City representing detained and non-detained immigrants before the New York City and Elizabeth Immigration Courts, as well as the Board of Immigration Appeals. She also managed a large federal circuit court docket.

Julie graduated summa cum laude from the University of Rhode Island in 2010. She later attended CUNY School of Law, graduating in 2014. As a law student, Julie worked as a student attorney in CUNY Law’s Immigrant and Noncitizen Rights Clinic. She also interned with Catholic Legal Immigration Network (CLINIC) in Washington D.C., and with Catholic Charities Immigration Legal Services in New York City. After law school, Julie attended Middlebury College’s Spanish Summer Immersion program and also volunteered with various immigration legal services non-profits in New York City, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. 

Julie has professional working proficiency in Spanish.