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Have any of you non-U.S. citizens who graduated from an ABA law school found employment in the United States (an employer sponsored you)? Aside from the OPT visa. I would like to hear some success stories. Or does anybody know of someone who is a non-U.S. citizen who went to school in the United States and was able to obtain employment/have a U.S. employer sponsor them? Please share stories.

Sponsorship is incredibly easy from biglaw. There is a chance that you won't make the lottery, but they'll probably stash you in some overseas office and not screw you over. Smaller firm? They probably won't bother with sponsorship.

I'm on an F1 student visa => No green card and no citizenship. Went to CCN, and I ended up with 7 BigLaw offers (grades were not much better than decent). No one during my interviews cared that I was not a citizen, most likely because I had a convincing and genuine answer to the question: "Do you want to stay in New York long term? Why?" The firm I ended up choosing promised to take care of everything I could ever need regarding immigration matters. Make sure your English is 10000% on point though. Don't expect any leniency because English is not your first language. The bar is as high for you as it is for everyone else (and rightly so, if you ask me).

My experience likely would have been very different had I been dealing with small/medium firms. As an international student, it's pretty much BigLaw or home (perhaps with some exceptions that I may not be aware of).

Anonymous User wrote:
My experience likely would have been very different had I been dealing with small/medium firms. As an international student, it's pretty much BigLaw or home (perhaps with some exceptions that I may not be aware of).

I'm gonna go ahead and disagree here. I know many people in smaller law firms who get sponsorship (in fact, I know none who don't), sometimes they say they "may" sponsor you or say they generally don't sponsor employees but that's usually code for "we've never actually had an international employee before and we don't really know how it works". IME those companies always do sponsor when the time comes and your OPT is up as long if you've proven yourself to be a competent employee. They just spent a year and 100k training you, they're not going to kick you to the curb. They just outsource the work anyway.

Your bigger concern is the way the H1B lottery has been going lately there's a very good chance you won't be getting the visa at all. I know a few people who have had to go home this past summer.

^ Your anecdotal experience beats my no-experience, but I'd just point out that this isn't a situation where you work on OPT for 10 months and then go to HR and tell them you need sponsorship. It's a conversation that you'll have when you are recruiting (and they'll have a questionnaire that requires you to disclose whether you'll need sponsorship at any point), and you'll want confirmation before accepting.

And obviously, working at a firm with an internationship presence reduces the downside of getting screwed over by the lottery.

Anonymous User wrote:I'm on an F1 student visa => No green card and no citizenship. Went to CCN, and I ended up with 7 BigLaw offers (grades were not much better than decent). No one during my interviews cared that I was not a citizen, most likely because I had a convincing and genuine answer to the question: "Do you want to stay in New York long term? Why?" The firm I ended up choosing promised to take care of everything I could ever need regarding immigration matters. Make sure your English is 10000% on point though. Don't expect any leniency because English is not your first language. The bar is as high for you as it is for everyone else (and rightly so, if you ask me).

My experience likely would have been very different had I been dealing with small/medium firms. As an international student, it's pretty much BigLaw or home (perhaps with some exceptions that I may not be aware of).

So you went from having an OPT visa to being sponsored by a U.S. firm? Or did you go back to your home country and then a firm in the U.S. sponsored you?

CCN anon here. I went from having an OPT visa to being sponsored by a U.S. firm. It's probably game over if you go home after LS. You want to seal the deal during OCI. I may be wrong, but I would never bet on any other route.

And by the way, most firms will start the sponsorship process during 3L. If you miss the lottery then, you get a second bite at the apple while on OPT. If you still miss the lottery, then you better hope there's some need for you in one of the firm's international offices (and it may be a long shot then too because I wouldn't assume visa regulations in other countries are easier than here in the US... unless you're from one of the countries where the firm in question has an office).

No personal experience but have lots of friends who came to law school on a studens visas. Most of their success stories are either (1) with large international organizations, such as The World Bank or IMF, or (2) medium or big law firms -- this worked out especially well for people with science backgrounds who also had some sort of graduate science degree in addition to a science undergrad.

Are you Canadian? Cause if thats the case its not a big deal. If not, then BigLaw seems like your best bet to get sponsored.

Anonymous User wrote:Are you Canadian? Cause if thats the case its not a big deal. If not, then BigLaw seems like your best bet to get sponsored.

I am Canadian. The reason why I ask is because I made the mistake of returning home and then applying for my OPT visa. Unfortunately for me, I was denied my OPT because my application was sent out 15 days after the 60 day deadline for the OPT from the date of graduation. Initially my application was timely, but they rejected my check for the $380.00 stating that it was an incorrect form of payment. So I had to resend my application to them and they counted my application from the date that I sent it the second time. Also, they ended up sending my application to the wrong U.S. address multiple times (even though I gave them the correct address), so by the time I figured it all out I missed the 30 day appeal period. It's unfortunate. So now I am just trying to figure out if anyone who didn't work under the OPT visa had any success returning to the U.S. by way of being sponsored by an employer. I hope to hear some success stories .

111aaa wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:Are you Canadian? Cause if thats the case its not a big deal. If not, then BigLaw seems like your best bet to get sponsored.

I am Canadian. The reason why I ask is because I made the mistake of returning home and then applying for my OPT visa. Unfortunately for me, I was denied my OPT because my application was sent out 15 days after the 60 day deadline for the OPT from the date of graduation. Initially my application was timely, but they rejected my check for the $380.00 stating that it was an incorrect form of payment. So I had to resend my application to them and they counted my application from the date that I sent it the second time. Also, they ended up sending my application to the wrong U.S. address multiple times (even though I gave them the correct address), so by the time I figured it all out I missed the 30 day appeal period. It's unfortunate. So now I am just trying to figure out if anyone who didn't work under the OPT visa had any success returning to the U.S. by way of being sponsored by an employer. I hope to hear some success stories .

Umm, TN visa if you're a lawyer?

If you have a law degree can't you apply for an EB2 Visa?

111aaa wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:Are you Canadian? Cause if thats the case its not a big deal. If not, then BigLaw seems like your best bet to get sponsored.

I am Canadian. The reason why I ask is because I made the mistake of returning home and then applying for my OPT visa. Unfortunately for me, I was denied my OPT because my application was sent out 15 days after the 60 day deadline for the OPT from the date of graduation. Initially my application was timely, but they rejected my check for the $380.00 stating that it was an incorrect form of payment. So I had to resend my application to them and they counted my application from the date that I sent it the second time. Also, they ended up sending my application to the wrong U.S. address multiple times (even though I gave them the correct address), so by the time I figured it all out I missed the 30 day appeal period. It's unfortunate. So now I am just trying to figure out if anyone who didn't work under the OPT visa had any success returning to the U.S. by way of being sponsored by an employer. I hope to hear some success stories .

Wow, that's a really tough situation. But probably better that you're Canadian. Did you not have a job offer from 2L summer? In the worst, worst case, applying for a job at a Canadian law firm probably >>>>> testing the [random 3rd world country] legal market.

As a Canadian all you need is a TN visa. You can apply for it at the border and get it same day.