Clients across multiple industries frequently turn to Maria for her knowledge and experience in counseling on immigration issues. What makes Maria such a sought-after immigration lawyer? Six times named as Tampa’s top immigration lawyer, Maria understands that immigration law is a way for employers to move human capital, including workers’ knowledge, talent, skills, experience, and training, around the world.
Most employers rightly view U.S. immigration law as a labyrinth—an elaborate, confusing set of rules that are all but impossible to navigate. But with nearly two decades of experience navigating the immigration statutes, regulations, and policy guidance, Maria is able to help employers efficiently and cost-effectively move employees where they need them, when they need them.
To do so, Maria takes a holistic approach to counseling clients. By taking time to understand her clients’ needs and objectives at the outset, Maria is able to properly counsel her clients on the immigration options available to them, whether it be a business visa (E-3, H-1B, H-1B1, H-3, L, O, P, R, and TN), investment visa (E-2, EB-5, etc.), or permanent residence. By carefully building her clients’ immigration cases early on, Maria sees fewer requests for evidence, which ultimately means faster and less expensive processing for her clients.
Aside from helping employers move workers around the world, Maria also helps employers comply with their I-9 obligations. Among other things, Maria routinely conducts compliance audits for clients to determine if they are properly verifying their employees’ eligibility to work in the United States (I-9 compliance). By conducting these audits, Maria can help employers avoid thousands of dollars in fines and penalties.
While she prides herself on her substantive expertise of tackling some of the most difficult immigration cases, Maria believes clients come to her for a much simpler reason: her availability and willingness to bring value to her clients.
When she is in the office, you will get Maria on the line because she works on her own files. When she is not available, she responds to calls and emails promptly.
Maria also takes the time to educate her clients, (often the human resource employees are given the thankless task of managing the clients’ immigration needs), on the immigration process. Maria has twice won JD Supra’s Reader’s Choice Award for her blogging. Sure, sometimes Maria’s willingness to educate her clients means less work or fewer fees for her, but she believes if you do right by your clients, they will keep coming back.
Speaking of doing right, Maria believes it is important to give back to the community. She was one of the original chairs of the firm’s Leadership Shumaker program during her tenure, raising more than $60,000 for Tampa Bay area charities. Maria has also been the chair of the Hillsborough County Bar Association’s Immigration Section, a fellow of The Florida Bar Leadership Academy, and on the Board of Directors for the Central Florida Chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
In her free time, she loves spending time with her two young daughters and her husband. Before becoming a mom, Maria, a native of Puerto Rico, enjoyed traveling to Western Europe, the Caribbean, and Latin America. Since becoming a mom, her international travel has been limited to visiting the countries of Epcot.
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