Howard S. (Sam) Myers, III, is the cofounder of the Minneapolis, Minnesota based law firm, Myers Thompson P.A., a firm with a national immigration law practice. A 1972 graduate of the University of Virginia Law School, he served as a volunteer for the University of Virginia Legal Aid Society representing public assistance applicants at administrative hearings in Buckingham County, Virginia.

This led to his preparing and assisting the Virginia Legal Aid Society at trial, while still a law student and recent law graduate, the first federal district court lawsuit in Virginia's history, brought on behalf of several public assistance applicants, successfully challenging the improper administration of federal welfare laws. He spent one summer, during law school, as a police officer and served in the United States Coast Guard as a legal officer between 1972 and 1976, where he handled his first immigration case. During that time, he was the recipient of the United States Coast Guard's Commendation Medal.

Mr. Myers began the serious practice of immigration law between 1977 and 1978. He became acquainted with the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA)'s predecessor organization, the Association of Immigration and Nationality Lawyers (AINL), shortly after he filed an adjustment of status application for a client in the non preference quota (which had become unavailable to his client the month before his filing). An AINL member gently informed him that he would have been aware of the quota's unavailability had he been a member of the Association. In 1979, he became AINL member number 436.

After joining AINL, he wrote his first published, professional article, A General Practitioner's Guide to Principles of Immigration, Non-Immigrant Visas and Employment of Aliens, for which he received the Minnesota State Bar Association Bench and Bar Author's Award in 1980. Since then, he has written many articles and coauthored, with his long time law partner, Elizabeth Thompson, a two-part Immigration Briefings entitled A Practitioner's Guide to Nonimmigrant Visas. He has written for, chaired and participated in many seminars in cooperation with the State Bar of Minnesota.

In 1985, he founded the William Mitchell College of Law Immigration Law Clinic, a cooperative pro bono legal services effort between the International Institute and the William Mitchell College of Law. He taught the clinic from 1985 to 1991. The William Mitchell Immigration Law Clinic continues successfully to this day, directed by one of his former clinic students.

Mr. Myers began his volunteer activity for AILA as Chapter Chair and co-founder of the AILA Minnesota/Dakota's Chapter. He began his national volunteer activity writing AILA's comments to proposed INS regulations. Later, on AILA's behalf, as amicus curiae, he participated in writing briefs supporting labor certification administrative appeals in several important labor certification cases. On AILA's behalf, he participated in the first en banc oral argument ever presented before the Board of Alien Labor Certification. Mr. Myers served as the national AILA president from 1991-1992. As both President-Elect and President of AILA, Sam helped direct AILA's legislative action strategy during the 101st Congress, which contributed to enactment of the Immigration Act of 1990. He currently serves on AILA's Investment Committee, the Editorial Board of Immigration Law Today, the Grassroots Advocacy Committee and Chairs the Restrictionist Watch Committee.

He was one of AILA's representatives, on the legislative negotiating team of the Business Immigration Coalition. He is reputed to be the one who suggested to the Chair of the House Immigration Subcommittee that 65,000 per fiscal year would be a good number as the H-1B quota.

He has participated in writing several other significant provisions to the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act including the amendments to the H-1B and L-1 visa categories. Reflecting his continued loyalty to the rural communities of North Dakota, he was the first to use the Department of Agriculture as an interested government agency for a J-1 two-year residence requirement waiver for a foreign medical physician, and when the program that developed from that effort appeared to become cumbersome, he conceived and helped draft the original "Conrad State 20" legislation enabling foreign-born physicians to acquire permanent residence through State Health Office recommended waivers.

Between 1992 and 1999, he served on the American Immigration Law Foundation (AILF)'s Board of Trustees, and is a Charter Member of its Legal Action Center. He was Chair of AILF's Board of Trustees from 1994 to 1998.

He has consistently been selected for inclusion in the regional publication Law and Politics as a "Super Lawyer", the national publication Best Lawyers in America and the International Who's Who of Corporate Immigration Lawyers for his work in the field of immigration law.

Today, Mr. Myers serves as an adjunct member of the faculty of the University of Minnesota School of Law. He has recently begun serving on the Mentor Board of the University of St. Thomas School of Law.

He has been married to Char Myers, a District Staff Development Coordinator with the Minneapolis public school system, for 33 years. They have three children, Matt, a financial risk analyst who also operates an independent hip hop clothing and music website, Jenny, a masters degree student in public administration and policy, a Democratic political staffer and campaign manager and Ben, who is serving in the United States Armed Forces, stationed in his native Seoul, Korea.

While his love of tennis and fly fishing is well-known, his other hobbies include reading, playing with the kids in Jenny's sailing class, strumming the blues on his National steel and twelve-string guitars, blowing the harmonicas that he keeps in his car's glove compartment and debating immigration restrictionists on talk radio and television.