Appeared in the Corporate Legal Times, April 2003
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Startup Revolutionizes Immigration Applications
By Julius Melnitzer
Published April 2003

WHEN LEBENE HORMEKU joined the Chicago office of Glotel Inc., a recruiter for clients in the telecom and high-tech industries, as general counsel in August 2000, she spent much of her time managing the 30 immigration applications her company processed annually-despite the fact she was paying hefty fees to outside counsel to help with the process.

"Our recruits include people from the United Kingdom, India, Ecuador, Pakistan, Colombia, Iraq and Iran," Hormeku says. "I needed a full-time staff member just to handle the repeated calls we get from applicants."

Instead of hiring another attorney, she turned to VISANOW in late 2000. The Chicago-based startup has patented an online automated immigration process marketed to corporations.

"Ninety-five percent of the immigration process is nonlegal administrative work and requires multiparty communication between authorities, the applicant and the employer on a continuous basis," says Robert Meltzer, the former immigration attorney who founded VISANOW in 1998.

In other words, immigration matters can be a significant drain on the financial and human resources of legal departments. Considering more than one-quarter, or 8.9 million of the 34.4 million, visas-including immigrant and nonimmigrant visas and naturalizations-approved by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (USCIS) in 2001 were employment related, this is a significant issue for in-house counsel.

"The people we talk to at the outset are the chief legal officers of corporations because they usually have the primary responsibility for ensuring that recruits get into the country," says Michael Kahn, vice president of marketing for VISANOW.

An Online Answer
This responsibility centers on a document-intensive and detail-oriented application process that is both tedious and repetitive. For instance, in-house lawyers have to spend hours filling out profiles of the employer and candidate every time they file an application.

"The goal of our system is to save costs and time, as well as allow clients time to focus on issue resolution rather than USCIS forms," Kahn says.

Companies recruiting foreign employees traditionally relied on law firms specializing in immigration matters. For the most part, attorneys for these firms work with paper files and have to haul them out every time a problem or question from an applicant arises.

"The most common question from applicants, of course, is 'What is the status of my application,' and the lawyer almost always has to pull out his file to answer," Kahn says. This process feeds the hourly rated, open-ended billing process that immigration lawyers use-resulting in substantial fees that frequently offer little in the way of value-added components.

"Because a green card application [for candidates seeking permanent residence status] can take up to five years, both the file and the process can get out of control," Kahn says.

VISANOW approaches the problem by automating the preparation of visa-application forms, as well as the underlying questionnaires and profiles employers and candidates submit to the USCIS. The types of visas that concern legal departments tend to be green cards and H-1Bs, typically used to bring in technical workers for three years.

Pain Relief
To take the headache out of this process, VISANOW's system features an online application that allows the representatives of the recruiting company-usually the legal and HR departments-and VISANOW staff to obtain an overview of the application's status, including all costs incurred to date.

In addition, the system informs users of the documents and information required to complete the steps in the immigration process. Three VISANOW attorneys are available online to answer users' questions and will usually respond within 30 minutes during normal business hours.

We don't respond by telephone because our whole system is geared to the efficiencies that online communication provides," Kahn says. "And we don't just respond online. We actually provide an answer within 30 minutes. Simultaneously, an e-mail goes out to the applicant informing him that the answer is in his online response bank."

Employers can choose to allow candidates access to the system and VISANOW's attorneys. Hormeku's experience is that candidates who have such access are less likely to call her with questions.

"Having access to the online system and giving the candidates access is a huge time-savings for me," she says. "Being able to check the status at any time is invaluable in responding to questions from within the company. It beats having to call Colombia or Iran to find out what's going on."

Another time-saving feature: The information Hormeku provides on one application is automatically entered into all subsequent forms. In addition, she only has to fill out the USCIS-required employer profile once because the system can reuse the information for different applications while allowing her to make changes whenever necessary.

Another advantage of the system comes into play when the in-house attorney responsible for immigration matters hands the file over to a staff attorney.

"Because the process is automated and status reports are available in real time, VISANOW enables a seamless succession for attorneys who are taking over an application process midstream," Hormeku says.

The system isn't for everyone, however. Users must be comfortable with the loss of personal contact that characterizes online processes.

"Some potential clients perceive a certain comfort in the way traditional legal services are provided through personal interviews and telephone communications and the presence of a physical office to which they can go," Kahn admits.

Still, more than 700 corporations across a broad range of industries have taken advantage of VISANOW's services. Its clients currently include American Airlines; Cingular Wireless; Logitech Inc., a developer of computer peripherals; Com21 Inc., a global system solutions supplier in the broadband services market; QuadraMed Corp., a large healthcare technology provider; and GATX Rail Corp., a financial services company that focuses on the transportation industry.

But it's not just the time-savings and reduced hassle that has attracted these heavy hitters. The service also is less expensive than using external lawyers and the traditional immigration application process.

Fee Structure
VISANOW offers fixed cost, flat-fee pricing for every type of visa and immigration service. Fees range from $690 for a TN visa [visas for professionals under the North American Free Trade Agreement] to $2,690 for full-service processing of an H-1B, to $3,950 for a green card.

Hormeku, who uses the full-service option, says the savings to her company are considerable.

"VISANOW costs us $600 to $800 less per application than when we used external lawyers," she says.

In other words, Glotel saves up to $24,000 annually. Savings to a larger company such as Cingular Wireless-which processes more than 150 applications annually-can exceed $100,000, roughly the cost of adding a junior lawyer to in-house staff.

The full-service option gives in-house counsel access to VISANOW's attorneys and account executives. This option is for clients who want the same level of service they expect from external law firms. The company also offers a less expensive option called "USCIS FastForms," an online forms-only program. This option allows in-house lawyers to prepare applications online without the assistance of VISANOW's attorneys.

According to Meltzer, VISANOW's services are bringing immigration application procedures into the modern world.

"The process hasn't been updated since the advent of the telephone," he says. "Using the web to improve visa processing lays the groundwork for the way law in this area will be practiced for the next 50 years."