Immigration

I mainly work with individual clients seeking help in their family immigration matters including waiver applications, and serve small to mid size companies in securing work visas or green cards for their employees.

LA, Oct 2003
Bar Number: 28756

• 7th Circuit Federal Court of Appeals
• U.S. District Court for Northern District of Illinois
• U.S. District Court of Eastern District of Wisconsin

• American Immigration Lawyers Association
• German American Business Association
• German-American Chamber of Commerce

I attend the American Immigration Lawyers' Conference annually. I also attend continuing legal education seminars in the areas of family immigration law, business immigration law and deportation defense/litigation.

A case most people can relate to is one about a client who came to the US on a visa, overstayed, got married, and afterwards tried to get her status corrected. The marriage failed and, as a result, she did not show up to the interview with her husband. If you don't go to this interview, you are automatically denied. With no status, she then entered into a second marriage and submitted a new application to gain status. Five years passed and during this time the Immigration Service dawdled, the marriage suffered rocky times and failed. Now 12 years had passed, she had no status but had fallen in love with someone new; and the Immigration Services had not even looked at her second application, based on the previous relationship, yet. This is when she contacted me.

Of course she feared that her immigration history would prevent her from staying with her newly found love. Convinced that she was not to blame for the past events, I filed what would be her third application and had the previous one closed. Naturally, the Immigration Service did not look very favorably at our new application and scrutinized it heavily. The next step in the process was the interview. I prepare all my clients thoroughly for the interviews and this case was no exception. Unfortunately, even though she and her partner passed with flying colors, the application was not approved because there was a question about her legal status and an idea that she needed a waiver of inadmissibility. Of course, I was aware of the immigration history and expected the Immigration Service to correctly interpret the law. However, without going into the complex legal ins and outs involved in this case, suffice to say that the Immigration Service misinterpreted the immigration history and misapplied the law. Knowing their decision was incorrect, I immediately called the responsible officer, who responded that the decision was approved by a supervisor and there was nothing further to discuss. Instead of giving in, my next step was to draft a legal memorandum on the issues and send this to the officer, supervisor, and the District Director. We received an approval, with no further comment, 10 days later.

Guess who smiled — yes, we all did!

1

Louisiana

San Francisco based immigration law firm across the street from the Immigration Court and close to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services District Office. We provide effective assistance in cases involving all aspects of family immigration; work visas (H-1B, L, P, O) and permanent residence through employment in the U.S. (EB-1, EB-2, EB-3) including Labor Certification ("PERM"; Investor Visas (E / EB-5); and deportation defense from securing bail/bond to relief from deportation in Immigration Court.

Upon my return to the Bay Area, I founded the Schmidt Law Group in 2008, after working as Senior Associate Attorney for a prominent immigration law firm in Chicago and Partner of a spin-off firm where I continue to serve as Of Counsel. I am also part of a close network of independent immigration attorneys as well as a former immigration judge who is now in private practice.

After working as an attorney in Germany and immigrating to the U.S., I served for many years as Executive Director of a San Francisco non-for-profit organization. Which coordinated training opportunities in the U.S. for social workers and AIDS educators from developing countries. I subsequently worked as pro-bono attorney for the Louisiana Pro Bono Net, in New Orleans, in the areas of family and immigration law.

(415) 449 6666

Monday through Friday
9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.

Yes

German

Most of my fees are flat fees that include everything from start to finish.

I generally set a flat fee with each client.

Mention NOLO for a free initial phone consultation.

A typical retainer is between $500 and $1,500 depending on the case.