Legal counsel for employers who sponsor foreign-national talent and who must verify and document a work-authorized workforce. We handle petition support, Form I-9 compliance, recordkeeping, and audit preparation before any of it becomes an exposure.
An H-1B employer's wage obligation does not end when the employee stops working. It ends on a bona fide termination: notice to the worker, notice to USCIS withdrawing the petition, and an offer of return transportation. Until all three are done, wages at the required rate keep accruing, which is how a dismissal in March becomes a Department of Labor finding the next year. We calendar the USCIS notice the day the exit is decided.
The I-9 side runs on shorter clocks. The employee completes Section 1 by the first day of work, the employer completes Section 2 within three business days, and the form is kept for three years after hire or one year after separation, whichever is later. A Notice of Inspection gives three business days to produce the lot, and since January 2025 an Illinois employer that receives one must post notice to its workforce within 72 hours. Paperwork fines are assessed per form, so an error in the template is multiplied by the headcount.
We represent the employer before USCIS and the Department of Labor, in English and in Spanish.
Guidance for employers sponsoring foreign-national workers. We identify the right category, assemble the documentation, and support the petition and certification filings that a sponsorship requires.
Counsel on completing, correcting, retaining, and storing Forms I-9 so employment-eligibility verification is handled consistently and a routine hire does not become a compliance exposure.
Help building the recordkeeping practices that sponsorship and verification require, including public-access files where a category calls for them, so the documentation is in order before anyone asks to see it.
Preparation for I-9 inspections and government audits. We review the records, identify the gaps, and support the employer's response so an inspection is met with a defensible file rather than a scramble.
Internal policies and processes for employers that hire across borders, with standardized verification, retention, and a clear point of accountability, so compliance is repeatable.
Steady counsel on the obligations that continue after a worker is on board, from status maintenance and changes in employment to the questions that arise between filings, in English and Spanish.
An H-1B employer owes the higher of the actual or prevailing wage from the day the worker enters employment, including weeks with no work, until a bona fide termination with notice to USCIS. Benching a worker between projects is a back-wage finding waiting to be made.
Every employee hired since November 1986 needs a Form I-9: Section 1 by the first day of work, Section 2 within three business days of it, and the completed form retained for three years after hire or one year after separation, whichever is later.
An H-1B needs a public access file available within one working day of filing the labor condition application, kept a year past the last employment under it. A PERM certification needs recruitment run between 30 and 180 days before filing, at the employer's expense, never the employee's.
Cap-subject H-1B registration opens in March for an October 1 start, so a spring hire waits until autumn or needs another category. Premium processing buys an answer within 15 business days, not an approval. Work authorization that expires mid-employment must be reverified on or before the expiry date.
Asking a new hire for a particular document, refusing one that reasonably appears genuine, or reverifying a permanent resident's card are unfair documentary practices under section 274B, enforced by the Justice Department. The employee chooses the documents from the lists; the employer examines them.
Spanish-language services make for clearer communication between employers, managers, and sponsored workers, and clearer communication keeps avoidable errors out of the file.
Before any petition, we map the role against the visa and green-card categories it can actually support: degree requirements, wage levels, worksite, and any Department of Labor certification that attaches. The category chosen here dictates every obligation that follows.
We build the sponsorship file itself: employer support letters, credential and job-duty documentation, DOL certifications where the category requires them, and the USCIS petition, put together so an adjudicator's questions are answered before they are asked.
Once the hire starts, the work turns inward: Form I-9 completed on time, reverification calendared, public-access files maintained where required, corrections made the compliant way. Most employers skip this stage, and an inspector reads it first.
A Notice of Inspection gives an employer three business days to produce its I-9 records under 8 C.F.R. § 274a.2(b)(2)(ii). We run internal audits before that letter exists, and when it arrives, we manage the production, the error review, and the employer's response.
The petition gets the worker in the door. The file keeps the company standing behind it.
Attestations it will be held to. In the H-1B labor condition application the employer attests to pay the higher of the actual or prevailing wage, to pay it through nonproductive periods it causes, and to keep a public access file open to anyone who asks from one working day after filing. If it dismisses the worker early it owes the reasonable cost of return transportation, and its wage liability continues until it has notified USCIS so the petition is withdrawn. If the role, worksite or hours materially change, an amended petition is due before the change, not after. For a PERM green card the employer pays every cost of the labor certification, attorney's fees included, and cannot be reimbursed by the employee. None of these obligations depends on whether anyone from the government ever asks.
Every employer in the United States, for every employee hired since November 6, 1986, citizens included. The employee completes Section 1 by the first day of paid work and chooses which documents to present from the government's lists. The employer examines them in person within three business days and completes Section 2, unless it is enrolled in E-Verify in good standing, in which case it may examine them by live video under the alternative procedure introduced in 2023 and must keep copies. The form is retained for three years after hire or one year after employment ends, whichever is later, and reverified only when a worker's employment authorization carries an expiry date; a permanent resident's card is never reverified. Since 2025 an Illinois employer may not impose verification requirements beyond federal law or act on a records discrepancy without giving the worker written notice and time to contest it.
A Notice of Inspection from Homeland Security Investigations arrives, usually by hand, and the employer has three business days to produce every Form I-9 for current staff and for former employees still within the retention period, along with payroll records and the business's formation documents. Since January 2025 an Illinois employer must also post notice of the inspection to its workforce within 72 hours, in English and any language commonly used at the site. The forms are then audited. Technical and procedural errors, a missing date or a document title left blank, come back on a notice that allows ten business days to correct them. Substantive errors, a missing signature or a Section 2 never completed, cannot be corrected and are fined per form. A Notice of Suspect Documents names employees whose documents did not check out, and in Illinois each must receive a copy of the finding within five business days and a chance to contest it before any action is taken. We run that audit on the employer's own forms before any notice exists, because a self-audit can correct and annotate what an inspection will only fine.
They come from four directions. Homeland Security fines I-9 paperwork violations per form, inflation-adjusted each year, so a template error repeated across the workforce is multiplied accordingly; knowingly employing an unauthorized worker is fined on a steeper scale, and a pattern of it is a crime. The Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division recovers H-1B back wages for benching and underpayment, with debarment from sponsorship for a period in willful cases. The Justice Department's Immigrant and Employee Rights Section penalizes the opposite failure, demanding more or different documents from workers on the basis of citizenship or national origin. And a sponsored worker whose petition fails through an employer's error loses status, which is a loss to the business that no fine measures. The first three are avoided by the same thing: a written process followed by one accountable person.
Yes, and it is shorter than most. One named person owns Forms I-9 and a deputy is trained the same way, so a vacation does not become a violation. New hires complete Section 1 on day one and present documents by day three, with a tickler that fires on day two. A second tickler tracks every expiring employment authorization, and only those, so reverification happens on time and permanent residents are never asked twice. Completed forms live apart from personnel files, in one place, so a Notice of Inspection can be answered in three business days without opening every drawer, and they are purged on a schedule once the later of three years from hire or one year from separation has passed. If the company uses an electronic I-9 system, it must be able to produce an audit trail of every change. A counsel-led self-audit every year or two annotates and corrects what it finds. For H-1B workers, each labor condition application has its public access file assembled on filing day, and every dismissal triggers the USCIS notification that stops the wage clock.
Yes. We offer Spanish-language services so that language is never the reason a sponsored worker, or the manager coordinating the sponsorship, misunderstands an obligation. Fewer misunderstandings mean fewer errors in the file.
Guidance on specialty-occupation and professional work visas, the temporary categories that most often run through employer sponsorship and certification.
Explore →Counsel for employers and foreign nationals pursuing lawful permanent residency through employment, covering the petitions, documentation, and process behind an EB filing.
Explore →Support for transferring managers, executives, and specialized staff from affiliated foreign offices to U.S. operations under the L-1 category.
Explore →Counsel for treaty-country nationals trading with or investing in U.S.-based businesses, and the employers that engage them.
Explore →Reviewed by Jonathan D. Herpy, Sr., Senior Partner · Last updated October 2026 · Educational overview · Not legal advice
One partner is accountable for the whole matter, and you have that partner's direct line. Chicago, London, and Dubai work to the same standard.