I regularly get inquiries regarding New Mexico unemployment claims.

Qualifying for New Mexico unemployment is usually straight forward. However, qualifying for New Mexico unemployment claims can become challenging usually for two reasons:

• The applicant employee has quit.
• The employer has fired the applicant employee for serious misconduct.

If these apply to you, there's no harm in applying. Just be prepared to be denied and have to appeal the denial.

If you are denied unemployment benefits there's usually no risk in challenging the denial, and you may win.

The New Mexico Workforce Solutions website has information on how to apply for unemployment benefits and how to appeal denials.

Sometimes employees qualify for unemployment benefits and receive benefits before the deadline for the employer to challenge application. If the employer successfully challenges the award of unemployment benefits, the employee usually has to pay those benefits back. So, it's reasonable to not spend the unemployment benefits until after the deadline for the employer to challenge the award has passed.

Unfortunately, the unemployment statute in New Mexico does not provide for attorneys fees for employee applicants. In many cases, the attorney fees would consume much of the employee's unemployment benefits which is why most attorneys will not take unemployment claims.

This is the reason why I do not accept unemployment cases.