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.
Preparing a truthful TN briefing when longer-term plans are uncertain
A temporary professional assignment and longer-term personal ambitions can raise questions that deserve individual advice. Organize the actual employment proposal and relevant immigration history honestly. A preparation file should help counsel assess the circumstances, rather than manufacture a convenient story or conceal plans that may matter. Put the file together in the order the decisions were actually made. A briefing that runs chronologically lets the adviser see which facts existed at each point, which is precisely the question that arises when a temporary purpose is examined. Grouping the same records by type hides that sequence and forces the adviser to reconstruct it from signature blocks. Chronology also makes it obvious which document is still missing from the middle of the story.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Separate confirmed arrangements from possibilities
- Bring relevant history to the adviser
- Use advice to guide the sequence
- Credentials sit at the head of the chain
- Refresh the briefing at each decision point
How should I sequence Canadian-status and U.S.-work questions?
A move can raise Canadian residence questions and U.S. work questions at the same time. They require distinct review. Canadian PR does not grant U.S. permission, and a U.S. opportunity does not answer Canadian obligations. Map the dependencies without assuming that approval or advice from one system resolves the other. Coordination has limits worth naming at the outset. Neither system answers the other’s questions, and neither professional should be expected to. A U.S. classification says nothing about Canadian residence obligations, and Canadian permanent residence is not citizenship of Canada — a distinction that matters because the professional route rests on citizenship of Canada or Mexico rather than on status held there. Establish which of the two systems each question depends on before asking anybody to advise.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- List the decisions in each system
- Identify practical dependencies
- Bring the answers together carefully
- What a Canadian document cannot do
- Misreadings that create real cost
What if the E-2 ledger and bank statements show different totals?
Resolve differences between the accountant’s ledger, payment records and proposed investment schedule before filing. The same transaction may be recorded as a loan, expense or owner contribution for different purposes. Explain those classifications with professional support rather than selecting the largest total and calling it qualifying E-2 capital. Reclassification after the fact is where a reconciliation usually comes undone. A payment first booked as a director’s loan and later described as equity, or an expense reversed and re-entered in a different period, changes the immigration picture as well as the accounts. Record what changed, when, on whose instruction and why, keeping the earlier version intact so the correction can be explained rather than merely asserted.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Create a transaction-level comparison
- Resolve discrepancies without altering history
- Finalize both capital and operating views
- Amendments belong in the record, not in a rewrite
- Where the facts move after preparation
Can the founder transfer without running both offices personally?
A founder’s ownership and commitment do not replace the L-1A role requirements. The new-office plan should explain how the U.S. role becomes managerial or executive while a qualifying organisation continues operating abroad. Examine delegation on both sides before assuming that the founder can remain the sole operational resource. Delegation is a question about people rather than intentions, so the plan should be able to name them. For every responsibility the founder currently carries, somebody has to be identified who will hold it afterwards — an employee, a genuine service provider, or a colleague abroad. A responsibility with no named holder has not been delegated; it has simply been left out of the diagram.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Inventory the founder’s existing workload
- Build two workable responsibility maps
- Test the combined plan with counsel
- Someone has to be named against every task
- Who decides, and who merely advises
What comparison file should a founder bring to L-1 and E-2 counsel?
Prepare a common factual record with separate L-1 and E-2 evidence columns. This lets counsel compare genuine eligibility rather than two conflicting versions of the business. Include the founder’s work history, ownership, nationality, proposed duties, investment and unresolved questions, then identify which decisions require legal review before further commitments. Comparisons fail most often because the two versions of the business drift apart while nobody is watching. One file describes an employee transferred by a parent company; the other describes an owner investing personal funds. Each may be defensible alone, and together they describe two different companies. Hold a single set of facts and let the routes differ only in which of those facts they emphasise.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Assemble the shared facts once
- Mark route-specific gaps
- Request a concrete next-step assessment
- Divergence between the two files, and what it costs
- Switching routes late, and what it does not undo
How do we plan family commitments while individual permissions remain uncertain?
Link household commitments to the individual immigration questions they depend on. The principal’s progress, a school offer and a spouse’s job proposal may follow different timelines. Keep each person’s category, work rules and documents visible before assuming that one promising milestone means the whole family is ready to proceed. Records settle these questions where assumptions cannot. Each person’s position rests on a specific document — an admission record, a dependent status document, evidence of work authorisation where the category provides for it — and the household plan should be built on what those documents say rather than on what everyone believes they say. Read each one, note its expiry, and keep the family summary tied to the paper rather than to the conversation.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Identify the decision dependencies
- Review the person behind each date
- Set a focused review point
- Which document answers which question
- Proof a school, employer or landlord will accept
Who will monitor the obligations after a route is chosen?
The choice between EB-5 and Gold Card should include who manages the work after the first submission. EB-5 involves investment and immigration follow-up, while Gold Card requires its own correspondence and any applicable corporate administration. Define ownership of records and future decisions instead of assuming the initial adviser engagement covers everything. Nobody inherits this work automatically, so settle the order in which oversight passes from one holder to the next before the first submission is made. The sequence itself matters: whoever assembled the file usually leaves the arrangement first, an adviser’s engagement ends next, and the obligations continue after both. Establish who picks up each thread, and at what point they do it.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- List the ongoing tasks by route
- Assign responsibilities explicitly
- Plan for changes and handoffs
- First submission is a milestone, not an ending
- Handover, in the order it has to happen