Emmett Soper

Emmett Soper joined Benach Pitney Reilly as counsel in September 2025 following a nearly twenty-year career with the Department of Justice, most recently as an immigration judge.

Emmett was appointed as an immigration judge in late 2016 by Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and he began hearing cases as a judge in early 2017. In March 2021, he stepped away from the court to serve as counsel to the Director of the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the agency within DOJ that administers the immigration courts and Board of Immigration Appeals. In May 2024, he returned to his position as an immigration judge, serving until July 2025.

Before becoming an immigration judge, Emmett held a number of positions in DOJ, including with DOJ’s Office of Policy, and with EOIR’s Office of the General Counsel and Office of the Chief Immigration Judge. He began his legal career in 2005 as a judicial law clerk at an immigration court.

Emmett graduated from Carleton College and the University of Oregon School of Law. Emmett’s first exposure to immigration law came when he interned, as a law student, at the Washington, DC office of Human Rights First. Before law school, Emmett was a Peace Corps volunteer in Ethiopia and Morocco.

Emmett is admitted to practice in Oregon. He lives in Virginia with his family.