Oct. 16, 2014
Weaver Schlenger Mazel LLP
See more on Weaver Schlenger Mazel LLPSan Francisco | Immigration
The former Wall Street tax attorney, now the managing attorney at boutique immigration firm Weaver Schlenger Mazel LLP in San Francisco, says it is "highly satisfying to change people's lives."
"You're appreciated for what you do," she said.
The 18-employee, six-attorney firm was founded in 1996 by two former "big firm" lawyers - Schlenger and Mary Jane Weaver - who wanted the benefits of owning and managing a boutiqe firm. In 2004, the firm added Laura Mazel as a partner. About 95 percent of the firm's work is focused on advising and representing companies and potential employees on visas and green cards, but the firm also takes some family immigration cases.
Schlenger said the benefit of keeping the firm a boutiqe is that partners have the time to directly work on cases rather than managing and supervising "a brigade" of associates and paralegals.
The firm hires curious lawyers who are encouraged to learn about the clients' businesses and needs.
"We are really involved," she said. "We know the cases."
The firm eschews the hourly billing model used at most full-service firms, which Schlenger thinks promotes inefficiency and bad management. Most clients are charged a flat fee.
The firm has received offers to be bought out by or merged into other firms over the years, but Schlenger says "it would take a really close fit offer." She said the firm wants to keep its collegial, client-first culture and not merely be swallowed up by a larger firm.
She said the firm does more than simply check boxes and process visa applications. Rather, in each petition they attempt to humanize their client.
"We are really good at story telling," she said.
For example, the firm recently represented a chef applying for an "extraordinary ability" visa. It was a difficult case, Schlenger said, because the baker was not a celebrity chef who had received much press abroad, and examiners give little weight to letters from colleagues.
The petition described the chef's work and included pictures of a carousal of bread he had created to generate a "visceral response."
The goal, Schlenger said, was to make the examiner's mouth water.
"I kept thinking 'how can I embed a croissant into this petition?'" she said.
The firm mostly advises Bay Area-technology companies. A CEO at a Palo Alto technology startup, Upthere.com, said he has used the firm for about 15 visa applications for highly qualified software engineers from Europe, South America, India, and China.
"They are a really wonderful firm," said Roger Bodamer of Upthere, a cloud computing company with 64 employees. "They know exactly what is going on. They really help enormously with driving you through the process."
Tina Tran, who oversees accounting, human resources and payroll for the startup, said Upthere.com even stuck with the firm after it was approached by a competitor firm four months ago offering to do its immigration work for less.
"The service is very responsive," she said.
- Brandon Ortiz
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