Read it.
Use it.
Focused guides for the questions that need more than a quick answer. Each includes a worksheet to prepare your next conversation.
Guides for your next decision.
Build a TN employer evidence brief before drafting the letter
Read & prepare Applicant planningKeep an L-1A new-office record from approval to extension
Read & prepare Applicant planningCompare the E-2 evidence for a startup and a business purchase
Read & prepare U.S. destination planningCanadian RN planning for New York State
Read & prepare U.S. destination planningCanadian RN planning for California
Read & prepareSeven decisions, answered before you prepare.
When the diploma shows a maiden name and the offer shows another
Your records may carry more than one version of your name. A TN review asks two separate questions: whether the person named on the credential, the passport and the offer is the same person, and whether that credential meets the requirements of the profession being claimed. A marriage or a change of name alters neither the qualification nor the profession list. Gather the linking civil documents before anyone drafts a summary of your file.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Build the name chain document by document
- Translation and credential evaluation are different tasks
- Keep the identity question apart from the qualification question
When a Canadian recruiter presents the U.S. job offer
A recruiter based in Canada can introduce a U.S. position without being the employer for it. Two facts drive the early analysis: your actual citizenship, and which entity would employ you and sign the offer. A permanent resident card is not the citizenship a category may require, and a posting labelled TN is a description written by whoever wrote the advertisement, not a determination about your file.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- State your citizenship, not your status
- Identify the employer behind the introduction
- Sort the procedural steps before you plan dates
When one partner contributes work and the other contributes money
Two people can build the same business together and occupy very different positions in an E-2 review. Services contributed are not the same thing as capital irrevocably committed and placed at risk, and an agreement giving one partner a right to review decisions describes control, which is a separate question from the amount invested. Record who contributed what, on what date, evidenced by which document.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Separate contributed services from committed capital
- Read the control terms, not only the percentages
- Measure substantiality against this enterprise
When an outside provider runs the foreign company's operations
Opening an office in the United States does not relieve the qualifying organization abroad of the need to keep doing business. Where the day-to-day operations abroad are handled by an outsourced provider, describe what the company itself still does: what it sells, to whom, under whose contracts, and who makes the decisions. A registered address and a mail service do not answer that question.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Show the activity, not the mailing address
- Trace qualifying employment through the actual structure
- Prepare the expectations for the first year
Incorporating a sole proprietorship before proposing a transfer
Incorporating a sole proprietorship creates a separate legal entity and may change the employment arrangement. Do not assume the earlier working history carries automatically into the new company, and do not assume it has been lost either. Both are conclusions, and both depend on the conversion documents, the effective dates, and what the person actually did before and after the change.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Document the conversion, then read it
- Test both routes against the same set of facts
- Name the open questions before restructuring further
Planning around a wedding that has not yet happened
An unmarried partner is not a spouse for dependent status, and cohabitation alone does not change that. Where a marriage is planned, the sequence is what matters: what is true on the date of each step, not what has been booked for later. Write down who is legally married to whom today, then list every decision that would change if the wedding date moved by a season.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Describe the relationship as it stands today
- Sequence the steps against the actual dates
- Record each person’s activities in the post-wedding plan
When part of a sale price is held back until a warranty period ends
A signed sale price is not the amount you can commit. Where the buyer retains part of the proceeds against warranty claims until a period expires, the headline figure and the money actually in your hands are two different numbers on two different dates. Build any funding comparison from what is genuinely released to you, and from when, rather than from the front page of the agreement.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Separate the price from the released proceeds
- Ask what an EB-5 file must establish about that money
- Read the Gold Card process as something other than an investment