Law Office of Alena Shautsova, P.C.

What the firm handles

Immigration is the whole of this New York City firm's work, and the range within it runs wide. The firm handles family and employment-based immigration, asylum, and deportation and removal defense. It also takes on VAWA petitions along with U and T visas, categories that exist for survivors of abuse and certain crime victims who help law enforcement. Green cards through family or employment sit next to citizenship and naturalization filings.

Work visas such as the H-1B and O-1 are part of the service list, and so are marriage-based visas. For clients building or buying a business, the firm handles the E-2, L-1, and B-1 categories. Hardship waivers and provisional waivers round out the filings it prepares, both of which come into play when a client needs forgiveness for a prior immigration issue before a green card can move forward.

In my opinion, a single office covering both humanitarian cases and investment visas points to work that spans most of what immigration law asks of a lawyer. Asylum and business visas call for very different skills. Handling both under one roof is a fair marker of range.

Who leads the firm

Alena Shautsova is the principal attorney. She passed the New York bar examination in 2007 and was admitted to practice law in the United States in 2008. Her focus areas are civil law, employment discrimination, and immigration, which extends her work past immigration alone.

Shautsova's training started overseas. She graduated from a law school in Belarus, then earned a Master's Degree in Law from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. That study followed a 2005 Eduard S. Muskie scholarship. The site does not list a founding year for the firm, so its exact age stays open.

Where the work reaches

Immigration cases often continue past the first filing, and this firm's work extends into the appeal and litigation stages. It represents clients in appeals before the Board of Immigration Appeals and the Administrative Appeals Office. It files motions to reopen, appears at immigration court hearings, and carries matters into federal litigation when a case calls for it.

Removal defense usually begins in immigration court and can climb to the Board of Immigration Appeals when a decision is challenged. Federal courts sit above that tier, and Shautsova's admissions reach them. She is admitted before the Southern and Eastern District federal courts of New York, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, and the United States Supreme Court.

Her hearing and filing experience covers USCIS, the Asylum Office, immigration courts, the Board of Immigration Appeals, and federal courts. She holds membership in the New York State Bar Association and the American Bar Association. Those admissions matter, because an appeal that fails at the Board can still be taken to a federal circuit court, and a lawyer needs standing there to file it.

What these cases involve

Immigration filings tend to run on strict government timelines, and much of the work happens on paper before anyone reaches a courtroom. An asylum case, for example, starts with a written application and supporting evidence, then moves to an interview at the Asylum Office or a hearing in immigration court. The firm's listed experience before both bodies fits the two paths these cases usually take.

Business and work visas follow a different track. An H-1B or an L-1 petition goes to USCIS with employer documents, job details, and proof the role qualifies. An E-2 investor petition turns on the size and source of the money put into a US business. Marriage-based cases add another layer, since the government looks closely at whether a relationship is genuine before granting status.

Removal defense carries the highest stakes, since the outcome can decide whether a person stays in the country. These cases run through immigration court, where a judge weighs the government's position against the defense the attorney presents. The firm's work on motions to reopen also speaks to this, because a reopened case can give someone a second chance after an earlier order.

How the team is built

The firm names several attorneys beyond Shautsova. Gregory Abrams, Muhammed Haider, Jesyon Montero, Marwan Twig, Olivia Turea, and Kholoud Samy Gaber appear on the roster, with Shautsova listed as principal. Together they make up the team the firm puts in front of clients.

A roster of this size gives the firm more than one set of hands for a caseload. That matters in immigration work, where filing deadlines and hearing dates stack up and one missed date can reset a case that took years to build. As a reviewer, I read a team of this depth as a sign the office can carry several active matters at once.

Where clients can meet the firm

The firm meets clients in person at two offices, one in Brooklyn and one in Amityville, both in New York. For anyone who cannot travel to either, it also offers online appointments. That setup covers New York City and Long Island from a single firm.

In-person consultations still carry weight in immigration cases, where the attorney reviews documents, identity papers, and timelines line by line. In my opinion, the mix of two locations and remote appointments makes the firm reachable for a wide slice of the New York immigrant community. The Brooklyn office and the Amityville office give clients on both sides of the city a place to meet counsel, and online appointments cover those who stay home.