Immigration judge says balance and gumption have led her career
Mimi Tsankov says she has her "dream job." (Photo courtesy of Mimi Tsankov)
A good temperament is the cornerstone of a judge’s success, and Mimi Tsankov, an immigration judge, says she’s been working on that for some time. Indeed, in eighth grade, she was voted “most courteous.”
“My youngest sister always said I was working on my security clearance at all times, even at a young age,” says Tsankov, who also serves as president of the National Association of Immigration Judges.
She told the ABA Journal that she was speaking as an NAIJ officer, her views are her own and are not representative of the Department of Justice or the Executive Office for Immigration Review.
When her mother, a government employee, made her aware of internship opportunities available to young people, Tsankov applied for a job at the federal level at age 17. She was hired as a clerk at a U.S. Department of State visa office, where she was shocked to be given the responsibility of doing background checks for nonimmigrant visas.
“I’ve always been interested in people from other cultures, the immigration experience, understanding what motivates people to move from one country to another—and that exposure to the Department of State at such a young age really fomented that interest,” says Tsankov, who presides in the New York Federal Plaza Immigration Court.
That initial job may have been what catalyzed her to follow a globally minded course of studies. She has a bachelor’s degree in economics with minors in French and English from James Madison University, and a master’s degree in foreign affairs from the University of Virginia. She also graduated from UVA’s law school, where she had a spot on the Virginia Journal of International Law’s editorial board. “Back in the old days,” Tsankov says, people had fewer mentors and resources to rely on, and it was often gumption that helped many.
“One of the ways that I discovered the notion of working for the Peace Corps, for example, is [through] a book called the Federal Yellow Book. I opened the Yellow Book and started going page by page and seeing, in all of government, what offices I’d be interested in. I literally started cold-calling different offices to find out what opportunities there were that were internationally related,” Tsankov says. “And that’s how I ended up with a position at the Peace Corps.”
As a Peace Corps attorney, she experienced the real-life intersection of several interests. Tsankov was based in Washington, D.C., but tasked with traveling the world to investigate fraud, mismanagement and waste. The role gave her hands-on experience with topics she formerly interacted with exclusively in an academic context.
Work-life balance challenge
Along the way, what kept Tsankov focused was a dedication to the balance of work and personal life that eludes many attorneys. “When I wanted to have a second child, I went into private practice and took just the right amount of work so that I could still be with my kids,” she says, alluding to the six-year stretch of time when she operated her own immigration law practice.
“It’s funny, I’ve gone back to [my kids] and [asked them]: ‘Did you guys feel like I was working a lot when you were little?’ And they say, ‘No, I think you were around a little too much.’”
Maintaining that balance, she says, was good for her availability to her kids, and it helped her “enjoy her career and progress in it.”
She describes her current position as an immigration judge as her “dream job.” Tsankov learned about the opening by scanning USAJobs, the federal government’s employment website. For many competitive judiciary roles, she says, listings stay open for only two weeks at a time, and opportunities can be short-lived. After submitting a resumé and answering standard questions about her knowledge and skills, Tsankov says she was invited for a “structured interview” in which all candidates are asked the same set of questions.
“I loved my interview. Even though there were three judges there asking me questions, I had prepared a lot for it and thought a lot about how I would handle difficult situations in the courtroom, what tools the court has and behavior that would have been inappropriate. It gave me a chance to shine,” Tsankov says. “And I just felt very fortunate that I was selected.”
The first years were challenging.
“Many of the judges that I talk to say that they’re nervous themselves, that they’re trying to do a good job. We all are. As you grow and become more confident in the role, you get comfortable with the 100 to 200 things that happen in a day,” she says. “But I didn’t feel as comfortable in those first few years because I hadn’t experienced [those things]. I’m sure I made some mistakes early on, but I got better over time.”
Today, Tsankov says that the mood of a courtroom is heavily influenced by the mood of a judge, and putting people at ease is beneficial to everyone involved. “The most important thing is to maintain an environment where everybody can excel, and that is going to draw all the attention away from the posturing and more towards the substance,” she explains.
As the NAIJ president, Tsankov has been part of conversations about family-friendly policies to help judges facing gender-based challenges. She also says her NAIJ membership helped her break out of a silo that judges can get stuck in, where “you know what’s happening in your courtroom, but you don’t know what is happening in all the other ones.”
Additionally, she serves as an adjunct professor at Fordham University School of Law. For students interested in a legal career, Tsankov has a few pieces of advice: First, pick your practice area, and then, “based on the time of life you’re in and what you need,” move around within that area. She was often guided by her last tip to budding attorneys searching for jobs: “Pick what’s available.”
This story was originally published in the December 2024-January 2025 issue of the ABA Journal under the headline: “Finding Her Dream Job: Mimi Tsankov, an immigration judge, says balance and gumption have led her career.”
#MyPathToLaw is a guest column that celebrates the diversity of the legal profession through attorneys' first-person stories detailing their unique and inspiring trajectories.
