What We Do
Tech Startup & Corporate Immigration
Growing or expanding a company in the United States requires an immigration strategy that supports hiring, fundraising, market entry, and long-term corporate growth.
At Alcorn Immigration Law, we map each key role in your organization, including founders, executives, engineers, product leaders, researchers, and essential employees, to the most effective U.S. visa or green card option based on eligibility, timing, documentation strength, and business needs.
Our attorneys work across all major employment-based categories, including:
- H-1B visas, the H-1B lottery, extensions, amendments, portability, and transfers for specialty-occupation professionals, DOD research personnel, and fashion industry talent.
- O-1A extraordinary ability visas for business, engineering, and STEM leaders, and O-1B visas for UX/UI, design, and creative professionals operating at the top of their field.
- L-1 intracompany transferee visas for multinational managers, executives, and specialized-knowledge employees establishing or joining a U.S. office.
- Country-specific visas, including TN visas for professionals from Canada and Mexico, E-3 visas for Australian nationals, and H1-B1 visas for applicants from Chile and Singapore.
- E-1 treaty trade, E-2 investor, and J-1 researcher visas for global business expansion, investment, and academic collaboration.
- Permanent residency pathways for corporate employees, including PERM, EB-1A, EB-1B, EB-1C, EB-2 NIW, EB-2, EB-3, and all corresponding adjustment processes (I-140, I-485, I-765, I-131).
Each pathway is evaluated through a structured lens: eligibility attributes, evidence requirements, organizational needs, adjudication risks, processing timelines, mobility constraints, and long-term immigration planning. By combining legal analysis with strategic insight, we help companies design an immigration infrastructure that accelerates hiring, supports operational growth, and ensures compliance across their entire global workforce.
Startup Founder Immigration
Immigrant founders drive U.S. innovation, and navigating the immigration system should not prevent your startup from launching, raising capital, or building your team. Our Startup Founder Immigration practice is specifically designed around the evidentiary needs, timelines, and mobility challenges faced by early-stage, venture-backed, and scaling founders.
We evaluate traction signals—including funding, accelerator participation, patents, publications, technical milestones, revenue, press, industry awards, and leadership indicators—and map these attributes to the most suitable founder pathways. These include:
- O-1A visas for extraordinary ability founders, backed by evidence of innovation, technical contribution, founder leadership, or market impact.
- H-1B CEO/CTO pathways, including cap-exempt strategies, H-1B transfers, amendments, concurrent employment, and creative corporate structures suitable for founders.
- L-1A and L-1B visas for multinational executives, managers, and specialized knowledge founders expanding into the U.S.
- E-1 treaty trade, E-2 investment, and E-1/E-2 essential employee visas for founders launching or scaling cross-border operations.
- B-1 business visas, Visa Waiver Program entries, and WB/WP status for pre-launch activities, fundraising meetings, and early operational setup.
- Permanent residency paths for founders, including EB-1A, EB-1C, EB-2 NIW, along with I-140, I-485, and travel authorization workflows such as I-131 Advance Parole.
Legal Launch
Legal Launch converts complex immigration rules into a predictable, step-by-step advancement system tailored to high-achieving founders, researchers, and technical professionals.
We evaluate your current evidence profile across O-1A, O-1B, EB-1A, EB-2 NIW, and related extraordinary-ability pathways and map out exactly where you meet, exceed, or need further support.
This program offers milestone planning, evidence-building strategies, comparable evidence options, and improvement timelines that help individuals strengthen their case over time.
Legal Launch delivers a structured, methodical approach, from initial evaluation to evidence building, case architecture, filing strategy, and long-term immigration positioning, all designed around your goals.
Immigration Law for Tech Startups Podcast
The Sophie Alcorn Podcast serves as a living, real-time knowledge resource for founders, engineers, researchers, investors, HR leaders, and employers navigating U.S. immigration.
The podcast plays a key role in simplifying complex topics, including O-1A preparation, H-1B strategy, L-1 for global expansion, fundraising-aligned immigration planning, policy shifts, USCIS adjudication trends, and founder-specific challenges.
We highlight recurring series, deep-dive episodes, and scenario-based episodes to match real-world problems faced by startups, including layoffs, cross-border hiring, remote global teams, evidence development, and scaling immigration infrastructure.
What is The Alcorn Method?
The Alcorn Method is a structured, end-to-end immigration framework built to bring clarity, predictability, and thoughtful strategy to even the most complex business, founder, and employment-based cases. Instead of taking a one-size-fits-all approach, we carefully analyze each situation—looking at eligibility, evidence, timing, adjudication standards, and long-term mobility, to create a plan that truly fits your unique goals in the United States.
Our process follows four distinct phases:
1. Strategize – Eligibility Mapping & Scenario Modeling
During our initial conversations, our primary goal is strategy-building. We listen carefully to the goals and expectations of our clients, ensuring that we gain a full understanding of the complexities of their business or work as well as their growth trajectory. A company with dozens or hundreds of employees in motion at a given time will require an entirely different strategy than a tech startup that is looking to build its core team. The strategizing step of our method is designed to take these needs into account and develop the most effective immigration solution for your goals.
We begin by identifying the strongest pathways based on your professional achievements, company structure, immigration history, and long-term goals.
This includes:
- comparative analysis of options such as O-1A, EB-1A, EB-2 NIW, H-1B, L-1, E-1/E-2
- Risk and timing evaluation
- evidence-gaps identification
- mapping alternatives and fallback strategies
This phase ensures that your immigration plan aligns with your business stage, fundraising strategy, hiring roadmap, and global mobility needs.
2. Prepare – Evidence Development & Case Architecture
During this phase, we organize and strengthen your evidence portfolio using a logical, USCIS-aligned structure.
This includes:
- documentation gathering and optimization
- expert letters, comparable evidence, and impact demonstration
- Creating a compliant corporate structure for founder cases
- preparing petitions that proactively address adjudication trends
This reduces the risk of RFEs and improves approval consistency.
3. File – Precision Execution Aligned With Adjudication Standards
We assemble your case according to the latest USCIS, DOL, and DOS standards.
We manage:
- petition preparation, quality control, and compliance
- RFE-mitigation and explanatory frameworks
- consular processing workflows
- timing strategy around travel, employment start dates, and business milestones
We also keep clients notified at every stage and coordinate interview preparation when required.
4. Win – Approval, Next Steps, & Long-Term Immigration Planning
Once approved, we guide you through next-stage mobility such as green card upgrades, changes of status, dependent options, and long-term relocation strategy.
We build durable, multi-year immigration plans to support hiring, expansion, global mobility, and founder stability.
