Great Bend ? The Kansas Attorney General’s Office has been looking for victims of a woman who posed as an immigration attorney for at least a decade.

A Barton County judge in May ordered Alicia Morales to pay $600,000 to her alleged victims after Morales failed to respond to a lawsuit filed against her in February by the attorney general’s office.

State officials claim Morales took advantage of immigrants’ unfamiliarity with English and U.S. law, allowing or encouraging them to consider her their attorney, even though she lacks a law license. The lawsuit also said Morales filed error-filled documents on the immigrants’ behalf.

Deputy Atty. Gen. Bryan Brown said the office estimated Morales bilked more than 20 people going back a decade or more. Brown’s office held a meeting last week in Great Bend, hoping to hear from people who paid legal fees to Morales, but no one showed up.

Official said they believed many former clients, because of their illegal status, were afraid of deportation if they came forward. Brown said the attorney general’s office would protect them.

Victims have until Oct. 5 to make a claim to part of the $600,000 ruling against Morales, although officials have not been able to collect any money from the woman, believed to be living in Texas.

Morales is married to disbarred immigration attorney James Phillips Jr., who had offices in Garden City, Great Bend, Liberal and Wichita.

Phillips surrendered his law license Aug. 27 after the Kansas Disciplinary Administrator’s Office recommended a two-year suspension stemming partly from his alleged bungling of four immigration cases.

The administrator’s office, which also was investigating seven other cases against him, said Phillips incompetently represented clients, didn’t keep clients informed on their cases, didn’t refund legal fees when required and allowed Morales to present herself as an attorney in his offices.