Family travel does not satisfy or shorten the principal’s qualifying foreign employment. Each person needs an appropriate basis for their own U.S. travel; prospective L-2 eligibility does not authorize an early move.
Separate the calendars
Record the principal’s own U.S. trips carefully because they may affect the foreign-employment analysis. An eligible spouse and unmarried children under 21 can seek L-2 when supported by the qualifying L-1 case.
Spousal employment requires qualifying status and documentation, while L-2 children cannot work. Avoid building school or job plans on an assumed qualification date until the employment and travel calculation has been reviewed. Keep the family's calendar separate from the employment calculation, since the two answer to different things and merging them creates pressure on an analysis that should be conducted on the facts.
Where a household wants to move at a particular point, establish whether the qualifying period supports it rather than adjusting the analysis to fit. Family members generally cannot proceed ahead of the principal, so the sequence is set by the principal's position in any event. Any work authorization available to a spouse depends on holding and maintaining valid dependent status and ends when that status does.
Prepare the relationship documents in parallel with the employment review, since that work is independent and there is nothing to be gained from holding it until the chronology is settled.