Practice Areas & Industries: Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, P.C.

Practice/Industry Group Overview

Ogletree Deakins immigration law practice provides a wide range of legal services associated with employers seeking temporary business visas and permanent residence of foreign nationals. Our immigration practice group works with domestic and international corporations and businesses in developing appropriate strategies for the successful employment of foreign nationals. Our full service immigration practice assists our clients in obtaining temporary employment visas for executives and managers, researchers, and other specialized technical employees; obtaining permanent residence status for foreign nationals; mergers and acquisitions and the resulting immigration impact; and providing expert guidance with regard to I-9 compliance and related anti-discrimination provisions.

Services Available

A Different Kind of Practice

Ogletree Deakins recognizes that immigration law and practice differs from other types of traditional legal practice. Our experienced and dedicated immigration lawyers work alongside HR Directors, Administrative Managers, Recruiters and Corporate Counsel as they deal with the major responsibility of complying with immigration and naturalization regulations. The firm has developed unique methodologies for servicing the special needs of its immigration clients in a competitive, "get it done right, get it done fast and get it done cost-effective" business environment while still upholding its professional commitment to ensuring client compliance with legal requirements and managing client risk. Included among the special features of the firm's immigration practice are:

VisaTrax: One of the most rewarding benefits we have to offer clients is our proprietary Internet application, VisaTrax.com. Through VisaTrax.com clients may initiate new cases, check on the status of current cases and allow their individual employees to monitor progress throughout the lifecycle of the case.

Client Service: Our firm represents companies with varying immigration needs from more than 3,000 matters per year to one matter a year. We frequently survey our immigration clients for feedback. These surveys are used to help us further refine our internal processes to incorporate customer service initiatives and to enhance our VisaTrax system to continue to meet our clients' evolving needs. To follow are value-added services that have been incorporated to our practice as a result of these surveys:

• Flat fee billing - Virtually all immigration work is done on a "flat fee" basis as opposed to traditional legal billing done in an hourly format. Clients have responded favorably, in surveys noting that flat fee bills are more understandable, user friendly for budgeting purposes, and more easily applied to individual cost centers.

• 24/7 Accessibility - The VisaTrax system allows you, your employees and recruits to have access to all case information at any time, every day.

• Same Day/Next Day Return Communication - We take pride in staffing our offices with appropriate personnel so that all of our clients receive timely service. Ogletree Deakins provides same day response (or next business day response in the case of late-day inquiries) to clients. The VisaTrax system itself has been recognized as an excellent client service tool offering immediate access to case status data.

• Full-Service Approach - We develop systems that best suit the needs of each company and adapt to their way of doing business. We have the flexibility and the staff to accommodate you the way your company chooses to handle the immigration function. Under our typical "full-service" approach, our staff of experienced professionals and paraprofessionals handle and/or assist in all phases of the process: handling all information and pertinent data gathering; creating all appropriate forms and filings; reviewing and finalizing applications for filing. Throughout the process our VisaTrax system follows-through and tracks case progress as does our staff who remain accessible for in-person assistance.

• Reduction-in-Recruitment (RIR) - Included in our flat fee structure is the establishment and management of a client's RIR labor certification program. Our assistance includes working with your Recruiters and Staffing personnel to coordinate the required advertising. Should the client prefer, we can place ads directly on the company's behalf, removing the burden on the company. Ogletree Deakins recently revamped one client's RIR advertising program by removing the ad agency as a "middleman" and simplifying ads and expects to save the client $50,000 in the coming year on RIR ads.

• Government Immigration Liaison - This experienced professional has over 10 years working in government affairs on federal and state matters. She provides services to clients regarding issues directly under the control of the government that would typically delay the immigration process for people without access to her abilities and connections.

Temporary Business Visitors, Change of Status, and Extensions
In addition to handling the L-1, H-1B1, TN or other business visa petitions, we also regularly advise our clients regarding entry into the U.S. under the Visa Waiver Program or B-1 (business visitor) status. In many cases, it is appropriate to file the L-1, H-1B1 or other visa petition along with a request to change status. This is desirable because the employee can be employed immediately upon approval of the petition and change of status application. In addition, following the foreign worker's entry into the United States, we routinely follow-up and work with employers in preparing and filing appropriate extension applications.

Labor Certification Applications/Immigrant Petitions
For many of our clients who are employers of foreign nationals, we have filed and are processing labor certification applications in connection with their employees' employment-based applications for permanent residence. We are successful in processing labor certification applications under normal processing procedures as well under Department of Labor Reduction in Recruitment (RIR) guidelines. We also routinely file first preference immigrant petitions and adjustment applications for permanent residence on behalf of many of our L-1A multinational executives and managers.

Extraordinary Ability Petitions
Our clients often employ foreign nationals who are part of a small percentage who have attained national or international renown at the top of their chosen fields. We have thus successfully prepared a number of first preference immigrant petitions for employees who qualify as foreign nationals of extraordinary ability in business, the sciences, or the arts. Our knowledge and experience in these cases has helped many clients avoid the lengthy labor certification process. Some of these same employees will first enter the U.S. under an 0-1 visa.

Outstanding Researcher
A corporation or institution may file an immigrant petition on behalf of an employee who is an outstanding professor or researcher. To qualify in this category, the employee must provide evidence of outstanding achievement including the receipt of awards, published material, authorship of scholarly articles and books to name a few. Again, qualification as an outstanding researcher or professor avoids the lengthy labor certification process. We have successfully processed a number of outstanding researcher petitions.

National Interest Waiver
This category is for persons who hold a position within a corporation or institution that is deemed to be in the national interest. Such persons may seek waiver of the labor certification process by providing evidence that they are employed or will undertake employment that will substantially benefit prospectively the economic, cultural, environmental and physical well being of their communities and the nation at large. Although the standard for these petitions has been raised by recent court decisions, we have also been successful in a number of national interest waiver cases.

Mergers & Acquisitions and the Firm's Business Immigration Practice
Over the past two years, a number of our corporate clients have acquired companies that employ substantial numbers of L-1 and H-1B1 workers (from 25 to well over 100). These major acquisitions included the purchase of worldwide business operations and required advice regarding the status of employees and the impact of the acquisition on individual cases and related amendment requirements. Our working knowledge of INS regulations and policies relating to mergers and acquisitions has proven valuable to many of our clients.

Form I-9 Audits and Regulatory Compliance Experience
We regularly advise our clients regarding Form I-9 audits by the INS. We have counseled clients involved in difficult audits and have successfully negotiated settlement agreements with the INS, which have included significant reductions in fines imposed as a result of such audits. We have found this expertise to be invaluable to Human Resource Managers who occasionally face difficult issues regarding employment eligibility and related Form I-9 documentation requirements.

Outbound Immigration
In addition to traditional "in-bound" business immigration services, we utilize and coordinate with foreign lawyer contacts to arrange for work permits for U. S. workers traveling abroad. We have assisted many of our clients in obtaining work permits in Mexico and other Latin American countries, Canada, Japan, U.K., Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium and France.

L-1 Blanket Program
Many of our L-1 employers have an approved L-1 Blanket Petition, which allows the U.S. employer to transfer executives, managers and technical personnel to the U.S. in an efficient and timely manner.