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VAUGHAN · L-1B FIELD GUIDE

Should we file before the manager finalises the duties?

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THE DIRECT ANSWER

Essential assignment facts should be settled and supportable at filing. A role that is still undefined may leave the employer unable to show how the employee’s knowledge will be used.

Resolve uncertainty before scheduling

Ask the manager to confirm actual responsibilities, reporting and worksite, then check the description against the business plan. Minor operational flexibility is different from not knowing the job’s purpose. Set the filing and U.S.

start sequence after that review, allowing for adjudication and any visa or admission requirements rather than treating an internal staffing deadline as work authorisation. Filing dates are the last thing to fix rather than the first. Work backwards from the point at which the employee may lawfully begin: adjudication, then any visa or admission step, then travel, then a start date that sits after all of them.

Hypothetical example: a compressed-gas distribution business builds a customer installation programme around a date chosen in a management meeting, then finds the duty description supporting the petition still waiting on the manager’s confirmation. Anything unresolved at the moment of filing tends to return as a request for evidence, which lengthens the sequence instead of shortening it. A calendar built outwards from the authorisation survives contact with the process; one built inwards from a customer deadline does not.

Record the date each dependency closes, since a sequence is only as firm as its slowest item.