At the planning stage of a new assignment and again before extensions, especially with prior H or L time or a promotion from L-1B. Waiting until the final admission period is nearly over reduces practical options.
Plan from verified dates
Ask counsel to calculate the available period and assess any applicable exception using real records. USCIS extension increments do not guarantee the full requested time if the overall limit is reached. Government processing speed is separate from eligibility for more stay.
Coordinate the employer’s staffing and the family’s commitments with the verified timeline, and review any separate long-term immigration strategy on its own requirements. Set a rule for when the calculation is redone, because the useful moment is whenever a fact changes rather than whenever the calendar says renewal. Departures and returns, a promotion, a transfer between group entities and any correction to an old record all qualify.
Hypothetical example: a geotechnical testing laboratory moves a manager onto a rotation that keeps her outside the United States for long stretches, and the assignment plan built a year earlier assumed continuous presence. Time abroad and intermittent patterns are governed by fact-specific rules that require evidence of the actual pattern, so the rotation has to be documented as it happens rather than reconstructed later. Tell counsel when the pattern starts, not when the extension is due.