Slepian Law

Where the firm concentrates

Based in Buffalo, New York, the firm works only in immigration law. Its cases fall into four areas: nonimmigrant visas, immigrant visas, citizenship, and removal defense. All four belong to federal immigration law, so a client with one type of matter meets the same agencies and rules that shape the others. The firm handles all four from one office.

A firm that keeps to immigration builds its routine around one body of law. It files the same kinds of forms often and works with the same federal agencies week to week. That single focus is what a client meets at intake and at every step after.

Temporary visas the firm handles

Nonimmigrant visas cover people who enter the United States for a set purpose and a limited stay. The firm names several categories it handles: B visas for visitors, F visas for students, J visas for exchange visitors, M visas for vocational study, H visas including the H1B for specialty work, and L visas for intracompany transfers. Each category carries its own eligibility test and its own evidence. A student petition and a work petition ask for different documents, so one firm covering the full set gives an applicant a single point of contact for filings that differ widely.

A nonimmigrant petition usually starts with a form filed to United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, backed by documents that show the applicant fits the category. An H1B for specialty work asks for proof of the job's requirements and the worker's qualifications. An F student visa ties to a school and an approved course of study. The firm's role across these is to match a client's situation to the right category and to prepare the record that supports it. For a client whose status changes over time, one firm can carry the file through each new filing.

Permanent residency and citizenship

Immigrant visas lead toward permanent residency, the status commonly called a green card. The firm handles two routes to it: family-based petitions and employment-based petitions. Family cases turn on a qualifying relationship, such as a spouse, parent, or child. Employment cases turn on a job offer or a category of work that qualifies. Both routes run through federal forms, supporting evidence, and waiting periods that depend on the category.

Family-based and employment-based petitions differ in how long they take. Some categories have visa numbers available right away, and others wait behind annual caps and per-country limits. An approved petition still leaves one step before a green card: either adjustment of status inside the country or consular processing abroad, and which one applies turns on where the applicant lives. Immigrant visa work covers that full arc for both family and employment clients.

Citizenship is the step past permanent residency for many clients. The firm assists with citizenship and naturalization, the process by which a lawful permanent resident applies to become a United States citizen. Naturalization generally involves an application, a background check, an interview, and a civics and English test before an oath. A lawyer's role here often centers on eligibility timing and on preparing the applicant for each stage.

Removal and deportation defense

Removal defense is the area with the highest stakes for a client. The firm represents people in removal and deportation proceedings before the Department of Homeland Security and the United States immigration courts. These cases decide whether a person can stay in the country. They move through an immigration court, where a government attorney argues for removal and the respondent's lawyer argues for relief.

Relief in immigration court takes several forms. Asylum, withholding of removal, cancellation of removal, and voluntary departure each answer a different situation, and each carries its own proof. Withholding of removal, the form named in the firm's client story, requires a showing that the person would more likely than not face persecution if returned home. Building that record involves country evidence, testimony, and documents that speak to the specific threat. Removal defense work belongs to the litigation side of immigration practice, argued in front of a judge.

The firm's site describes one client matter under the heading "Mark Granted Withholding of Removal due to Political Persecution." As a reviewer I read a single named outcome as one illustration of the work, and the firm presents it that way, as a client's story. Protection from persecution is a recognized branch of immigration law, and it connects directly to the firm's removal defense.

How the firm is led

Andrew Slepian founded Slepian Law in March 2013. He was born in Buffalo. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Economics from Pennsylvania State University in 2005 and graduated from Brooklyn Law School in 2008. He was admitted to the New York State Bar in March 2009.

Before opening the firm, Andrew Slepian worked as an immigration and removal defense litigator at a local firm and became a junior partner within three years. That path lines up with the work the firm now does, since the same two threads, visa practice and removal defense, run through his earlier role. In my opinion a founder who litigated removal cases before setting up on his own brings directly relevant experience to that side of the firm's work.

His professional memberships include the New York State Bar Association, the New York State Defenders Association, the Erie County Bar Association, and the American Bar Association. He is Treasurer of the Upstate New York Chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Membership in these groups links a lawyer to continuing education and to peers in the same field, and the AILA role ties the firm to the national body for immigration attorneys.

Who the firm serves and where

The firm states that it serves Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse, along with clients beyond those cities. Rochester and Syracuse both lie along the corridor that runs east from Buffalo, so the stated reach covers a large share of upstate New York. Immigration law is federal, which means a Buffalo firm can take a case for a client in either city under the same governing rules.

Location still carries weight for one reason the firm raises. Its Buffalo office is near the U.S.-Canadian border, and that proximity feeds into how some L visa applications can be processed at the crossing. In my opinion that geographic point is a genuine reason a transferring employee might look to a Buffalo firm for an L case. The firm connects its own Buffalo location to that part of its visa work.