Immigration law Forum

[Anonymous User]

What does immigration law practice look like? I hear of a lot of solo immigration practitioners, as well as some large business immigration firms like Fragomen. But are there 5-10 person immigration law firms in cities with large immigrant populations? What is the pay like?

[sccjnthn]

In San Francisco there are a decent number of 3-5 person firms. On the removal side many of the firms specialize in the ethnic group of the partner (Chinese, Indian, or Spanish speaking). It appears that there’s a split between firms that practice removal defense, firms that practice business immigration, and firms that practice before CIS. I have no idea about the salaries.

What type of immigration law do you want to practice? Why are you interested in immigration law? If you have a save the world mentality and are on the West Coast you might be interested in the public defender offices. Their pay is decent, it seems like they get to pick their removal cases, and they have more time to properly prepare their cases than some of the volume based practices.

[Anonymous User]

I am interested in many areas of immigration law, but especially asylum/removal because it actually involves legal arguments/litigation. I could see myself doing other areas too, but it sounds like visa applications, naturalization, etc. can get pretty routine/boring. (I may be wrong.) I am a child of Asian immigrants and only speak English. I would be quite comfortable with immigrants of any ethnicity, but I suspect Asian clients would be more likely to want to hire me.

I wouldn't say I have a "save the world" mentality, but I'm also not looking to make a fortune. I'm somewhere in the middle: I want to do something that pays better than being a public defender but don't need biglaw money. I am curious if there enough immigrants facing deportation who can afford to hire private attorneys at, say, $200 per hour. Would it be hard to get up to, say, 1500 hours a year at that rate?

If I don't do immigration law specifically, I would probably be interested in some other type of small-firm practice (e.g., employment law, small business disputes). Is it feasible to mix immigration law practice with other areas (e.g., plaintiff-side employment law)? Or do most immigration lawyers specialize solely in immigration? When I Google immigration attorneys, I see a lot of the latter. But then again, I've heard of big law attorneys taking asylum cases pro bono, so maybe it's not that specialized?

[Anonymous User]

My view is limited because I work for DHS in a jurisdiction that is very migrant-friendly (we have a lot of venue fraud and the migrants never want their cases dismissed) and I have never worked for a private firm. In my experience, the removal cases from the ethnic groups that hire private firms tend to be routine because these individuals have well-rehearsed stories designed to meet all of the requirements for relief. Consequently, private attorneys generally have a limited role of asking the same questions and hearing the same story every day. Because these cases almost always meet the requirements for relief these attorneys rarely have appeals. By contrast, public defenders and non-profits represent individuals with complicated criminal histories, more intricate legal issues, and from my perspective more authentic stories of trauma.

I don't know how much the attorneys pay associates, but we have had associates from the higher-income immigrant groups turn down our 100k starting offer as too low so I am guessing that even the associates are doing decent. It appears that the partners from successful firms are also doing very well. The most successful of these attorneys appear with 10-15 Respondents a month and each of these Respondents is paying at least 10-15k. From my perspective the attorney's primary role is recruiting clients and then from that point on a lot of the work is handled by the administrative staff. This is why language skills are essential for most of these firms.

The attorneys I see most often specialize in removal defense. Routine removal cases aren't that complicated, but, a lot of times attorneys who have blended practices miss some of the intricacies of removal cases and can end up harming their clients. I imagine that if you are serving your ethnic group there could be a lot of overlap with non-immigration issues, but as most of my cases involve new arrivals I don't have insight into how that works. In the cities where I've worked the AILA chapter has been very active. I'd recommend reaching out to your AILA chapter to get an idea of whether your idea is feasible and the issues you might encounter.