Seyfarth Shaw Welcomes Angelo Paparelli’s Renowned Immigration Firm into Its Business Immigration Practice Group

Group totals 17, including para-professionals and staff.

Los Angeles (January 7, 2009)—Seyfarth Shaw LLP, one of America’s leading full-service law firms, today announced that the firm has significantly expanded its Business Immigration practice with the addition of a team consisting of eight business immigration lawyers and nine additional team members, including para-professionals and staff. Angelo A. Paparelli, formerly of Paparelli & Partners LLP, joins the firm as partner, along with attorneys Susan K. Wehrer, Debi S. Gloria, Kwang-Yi Ger Gale, Karen Gatbonton, Elise Tsai, Lily S. Hensel and Elizabeth Wheeler. All were with Paparelli & Partners LLP, an internationally recognized immigration specialty law firm established in 1997 serving clients throughout the country and abroad from offices in Southern California and New York.

“We are delighted to welcome Angelo and his skilled immigration team to Seyfarth Shaw,” said J. Stephen Poor, Chair and Managing Partner of Seyfarth Shaw. “This group increases the depth and breadth of our business immigration practice, and better positions us to meet the immigration needs of U.S. and foreign-based employers.” “Angelo’s work is highly respected by the international immigration bar, and we are thrilled to count him and his team among our talented immigration attorneys,” said Valerie J. Hoffman, Chair of Seyfarth Shaw’s Business Immigration & Affirmative Action/Diversity Counseling Practice Group. “Angelo and his team also further boost our outbound global migration practice.”

“This group of accomplished legal practitioners adds an immigration component to our office that will be beneficial to many of our clients in Southern California,” said Kenwood C. Youmans, Office Managing Partner of the firm’s Los Angeles office. “Our new colleagues also share the value we place on teamwork and they’re a good fit culturally with the work environment we’ve cultivated at the firm.”

“We are pleased to join a group of attorneys who are practicing sophisticated business immigration law and employing cutting-edge process management methodologies to ensure consistent top-quality work and increased value for clients,” said Paparelli. “As the practice areas of immigration and labor and employment law increasingly converge, we look forward to leveraging the strengths of these two outstanding immigration practices and of Seyfarth’s stellar expertise in the labor and employment practice areas. We are also pleased to provide clients with access to Seyfarth Shaw’s full-service offerings.”

Attorney Biographies

Angelo Paparelli (Partner), with a bicoastal practice in Southern California and New York City, is known for providing creative solutions to complex and straightforward immigration law problems, especially involving mergers and acquisitions, labor certifications and the H-1B visa category. His practice areas include legislative advocacy; employer compliance audits and investigations; U.S. and foreign work visas and permanent residence for executives, managers, scientists, scholars, investors, professionals, students and visitors; immigration messaging and speech-writing; corporate policy formulation; and immigration litigation before administrative agencies and the federal courts. He is frequently quoted in leading national publications on immigration law. He is also President of the Alliance of Business Immigration Lawyers, a 30-firm global consortium of leading immigration practitioners. Paparelli’s blog and a comprehensive list of his many immigration law articles can be found at http://www.entertheusa.com/

He is an alumnus of the University of Michigan where he earned his B.A., and of Wayne State University Law School where he earned his J.D. Paparelli is admitted to the state bars of California, Michigan and New York.

Susan K. Wehrer (Of Counsel) will work primarily out of the firm’s San Francisco office. Wehrer’s practice focuses on business immigration matters, including: university scholars and researchers, labor certification issues, the immigration implications of mergers and acquisitions, and immigration issues facing start-up companies. She also frequently works with investors, athletes and artists on their immigration matters.

Wehrer is an alumna of the University of California, Irvine where she earned her B.A., and she obtained her J.D. from Loyola Law School. She is admitted to practice law in California and the U.S. District Court, Central District of California.

About Seyfarth Shaw’s Business Immigration Practice

Seyfarth Shaw's Business Immigration Group represents a powerful and rare combination of skills and capabilities: they bring a critical mass of seasoned professionals, intelligent technology and a global platform to the task of managing the visa processing programs of the group’s corporate clients. The business immigration practice leaders, Dyann DelVecchio, James King and Russell Swapp, have decades of experience in the business immigration field. The Group uses that experience to architect sophisticated legal strategies and deploy proactive case management solutions. The team’s professionals work closely with clients on the front-end to develop and deploy innovative business immigration management programs to ensure that client objectives are met on time and under budget. Due to the group’s aggressive use of case management, document assembly and case delivery technologies, intelligent staffing philosophy, and experience in managing visa processes and projecting and budgeting costs, the group’s clients experience a smoothly functioning, well-managed work permit program at competitive cost.

In addition to the firm’s U.S. business immigration capabilities, Seyfarth Shaw's business immigration practice also assists clients in obtaining short- and long-term work permits, residence permits, and residence visas for assignments to foreign countries. The firm’s business immigration team includes case specialists who are attorneys authorized to practice in foreign jurisdictions, and the group has a comprehensive network of leading business immigration attorneys across the globe who can assist with the navigation of local legal landscapes. The group offers a broad range of services to clients, including the preparation and filing of all necessary residence permits, residence visas, and work permits as well as any related documentation and visas required for family members.

Seyfarth Shaw’s Los Angeles Office

Seyfarth Shaw opened its office in Los Angeles in 1973 with two partners from its Chicago office. It has grown both in breadth and depth since then. It now has more than 100 lawyers with expertise in business transactions, intellectual property, commercial litigation, employee benefits, international and employment law.

About Seyfarth Shaw

Seyfarth Shaw has over 750 attorneys located in nine offices throughout the United States including Chicago; New York; Boston; Washington, D.C.; Atlanta; Houston; Los Angeles; San Francisco and Sacramento; as well as Brussels, Belgium. The firm provides a broad range of legal services in the areas of business services, labor and employment, employee benefits and litigation. Seyfarth Shaw’s practice reflects virtually every industry and segment of the country’s business and social fabric. Clients include over 300 of the Fortune 500 companies, financial institutions, newspapers and other media, hotels, health care organizations, airlines and railroads. The firm also represents a number of federal, state, and local governmental and educational entities. For more information, please visit www.seyfarth.com.