How I came to develop my approach to EB-1A

Here’s a post by immigration lawyer Amber Davis on her approach to EB-1A:

Here’s a bit of backstory on how I came to develop a different perspective on EB-1As.

Not saying that it’s the only perspective to take, but it’s one I’m comfortable with.

Early on in my career, I worked at a smaller firm (this was back in 2014).

We’d get clients from extremely niche fields who, because of the nicheness of their fields, did not have widespread acclaim or thousands of citations to validate the impressiveness of their work.

There were also all mostly entrepreneurs who had built their own businesses and were willing to pay simply for a chance at EB-1A.

These weren’t the types of cases that we at the time felt could be approved, but we gave them a shot.

Many of them ended up getting approved.

Cases that most firms would have turned away because they did not fit the traditional EB-1A mold,

Ended up getting approved, which changed the lives of many of our clients.

This wasn’t just one case, but close to a hundred cases. So many examples of non-traditional EB-1A applicants getting approvals.

So I started taking a more “out of the box” approach to EB-1A, branching off to corporate clients who were high up at their companies but again did not fit the traditional EB-1A mold.

Approvals for them as well.

If you look at USCIS EB-1A data, especially recent data, you’ll see that approval rates are at around 65-75% pretty consistently.

And I’m not the only one submitting these kinds of cases and getting these kinds of approvals.

Seeing cases we thought would not work get approved early on in my career made me more open-minded with EB-1As and also other kinds of cases.

Ever since then, I’ve tried to push the boundaries with cases I take on. As long as the client is fully informed and understands their chances.

While this means more potential denials, it also means more potential approvals for people who would have otherwise not applied.

Seeing their lives completely changed is why I will always be open-minded when it comes to the kinds of cases I take on.

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Interested in EB-1A, EB-2 NIW or O-1? Feel free to reach out to Amber at amber.davis@waypointimmigration.org or via LinkedIn messages.

Interested in profile-building for EB-2 NIW and maximizing your chances of approval? Check out Amber’s course, NIW Ready, which helps those of you who want to build a strong NIW profile in 2-3 months. You’ll also be considered for Amber’s refundable case package, which guarantees a refund of only attorney fees if your case does not get approved. At the end of the course, assuming you do the work, you’ll be ready to file.