When a company is hiring an attorney, they are typically meeting prospects in person. So how do you hire an attorney, especially if they are not right in front of you? We have clients all over the country and across the globe. We don’t get to meet with each client in person but build successful relationships in other ways.
Businesses and individuals choose OnlineVisas for four simple reasons: our strategy, briefs, technology, and success rate.
Watch or listen to the episode below.
Strategizing with OnlineVisas
Strategy sessions are crucial. What we do is we break down how a company processes immigration cases and what their pain points are. Maybe the company gets visas denial, extra Requests for Evidence (RFEs), or any other sort of immigration problems. Through our strategy sessions, we’re essentially investing in our clients first by telling them how we would get a visa for them.
The strategy session can go one of two ways. The first is the macro level, where we discuss how businesses deal with immigration cases in general. The second is the micro level, where we can help determine whether the company should hire a specific person based on the complexity of their immigration case.
A lot of other attorneys operate by saying, “Pay me a lot of money, and then I’ll tell you whether or not you can get that visa.” We invest first in the relationship, and that’s why companies choose OnlineVisas.
The Briefing Process
A brief is a legal document that addresses what the leading case law is and the current regulations. For immigration cases, a brief anticipates potential issues and addresses them, making the decision process easy for immigration adjudicators.
Most immigration attorneys don’t brief. They write cover letters, which is essentially a short statement and a table of contents. Then, they leave it up to immigration to interpret the evidence. We identify what the issues are and provide supporting evidence.
Immigration cases are being denied at a significant rate, meaning that briefs are a critical component of success. H-1B visas went from an 88% approval rating in 2016 to a 59% approval rating in 2017 due to the change in the approach to immigration by the current administration.
Part of our briefing process is to create a beautiful document that looks and reads more like a magazine. Why make it look like a legal brief? Adjudicators have stacks of paperwork that all look the same. So, we create documents that stand out and are simple to understand.
A picture speaks a thousand words. A picture of somebody in their work environment, whether they are a techie, an athlete or a CEO, just doing what they do puts a face to the application and gives credibility.
We take it a step further and humanize the applicant by telling their story. We also tell the American company’s story and why they are hiring this person. We describe the industry as a whole, how the specific job fits into that industry, and detail how the requirements are being met. We do all that upfront. Then, we address the law and how each exhibit applies to different regulations. It is a holistic approach to immigration law.
Finally, we share the winning case law, winning arguments, winning strategies, and effectiveness from all of our case data with our clients. We do more work than other attorneys by taking all of the guesswork out and providing the complete package.
Our Technology and Success Rate
We charge by the case, so efficiency is key to our business model. OnlineVisas’ Gateway platform helps us develop 25-to 30-page briefs instantaneously. We can deliver this incredible product a lot quicker and charge our clients less money. We can do this because several cases might be built on say 10 or 12 different elements. There might only be two elements different from case one to case two.
We teamed up with a prominent association of tech companies called ITServe Alliance and collected denials from many different lawyers and many different companies. This allowed us to see a broad spectrum of issues associated with visa denials. From this, we created a framework where we found five primary reasons for rejections.
In 2020, during the most inhospitable climate for H-1Bs, we achieved a 95% success rate, which is high compared to the 59% nation-wide. In the 2021 H-1B season, we got a flawless 100% petition approval rate for our clients!
Here’s the reason why: Our methodology and technology also allow for quick reaction time.
For example, in February 2018, USCIS released a memo just before the H-1B filing deadline that changed the H-1B rules. Using our collection of winning arguments, in addition to the advantages offered by our platform, we were able to change all of our clients’ briefs based on how denials were being decided. We pumped out all of our cases for the April 1st deadline in one weekend.
We can meet with clients online then share our strategy through cloud-based technology. With usernames and passwords, multiple stakeholders, such as an employee, manager, spouse, etc. can stay in the loop. The HR director, who has 50 different cases with us, can see what’s happening across different cases.
We’ve developed something that has radically changed the practice of law, in particular, immigration law. We continue to evolve our platform to meet the changing immigration landscape and growing demand.