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I am writing on behalf of a friend who works at a foreign office of my firm and got his JD in his home country of HK. He has been wanting to move to the US for years and our firm filed multiple H1B visa apps on his behalf to no avail. He does not have a US Masters like many people who get H1B to work in big law...the US masters gives you preference in the H1B lottery. The lottery for the rest of the spots has been perverted by outsourcing companies like Accenture that put in tens of thousands of apps which ultimately eat up most of the rest of the H1Bs. Unless something changes with the H1B it seems unlikely to be something he can expect to use to come to the US.

There are some other types of bisas, eg, an L visa that he could theoretically try to use instead but our firm was not open to that (even though investment banks use L visas to bring people with just BAs and like two years of experience over here). So what I'm wondering is whether there is anyone out there who has dealt with this issue...trying to come to the US to work in a legal capacity without having a US degree - and could maybe explain what method you used or point him toward certain headhunters or lawyers who could help.

We're not looking for legal advice, just some help getting pointed in the right direction, the right person to speak with.

Maybe a J visa,though that is temporary training only.
http://www.americanbar.org/groups/inter ... hange.html

Marrying a US citizen is by far the best bet for anyone wanting to work here.
Other than that maybe an LLM, but don't overestimate how much a US masters helps in H1B lottery. My firm had JD grads from T14 schools not get approved

The L 1 visa doesn't work with the law firm structure.

Im not an expert but the J 1 visa or marriage are the only options other than H 1B