Use the relevant service and employment agreements, effective dates and evidence of actual duties and reporting arrangements. Identify the legal entities in each phase.
Preserve the different periods
Do not replace consulting invoices with an invented employment narrative. Explain the transition accurately and have the relevance of each period assessed under the L requirements.
Share registers, incorporation certificates, share certificates, shareholder agreements and the minutes authorising each issuance are the evidence, and they need to agree with each other. Look at the underlying control test before treating a consulting period and an employment period as interchangeable. A consultant typically sets independent working hours, uses personal tools and invoices for defined deliverables, while an employee works under the foreign entity's direction, follows its schedule and receives ongoing instruction rather than a fixed scope. Only a period that shows genuine employer control, integration into the organization and full-time engagement can count toward the continuous qualifying year an L-1A petition depends on. Gather evidence that reflects that control directly: correspondence assigning tasks, internal reporting lines, access to internal systems and any benefits or withholding that distinguish staff from outside contractors. Where the working arrangement changed gradually rather than on a fixed date, explain the practical shift in supervision and integration rather than relying on the paperwork date alone. Keep each period's evidence separate so a reviewer can assess whether it meets the full-time, continuous standard on its own terms.