The Fleischer Law Firm LLC

Focus and practice areas

Immigration law is the whole of the work here. The firm's site states that it practises immigration law exclusively, and the practice area list bears that out: family immigration, work visas, business immigration, national interest waivers, citizenship and naturalization, deportation defence, DACA, green cards, immigration litigation, asylum and VAWA petitions.

That list covers two quite different kinds of matter. Some are applications, where the client asks the government for a benefit. Others are defensive, where the government has started a case and the client answers it. A firm that handles both sides of that line sees the same client population at very different moments.

The firm describes clients ranging from individuals seeking advice to multinational companies obtaining visas for employees. It offers services in English and Spanish, and the site carries the line "Se habla español". In my opinion, that matters more in immigration than in most fields, because the client often has to give the factual account personally and in detail.

How the team is built

Three attorneys appear on the site. Richard I. Fleischer is listed as Founder and Partner, in honour, having died in January 2024. Neil Fleischer is listed as Founder and Partner. Christopher M. Pogue is listed as Of Counsel Attorney.

The founder's record

Richard I. Fleischer practised immigration law from 1973. The firm's site says he was the first attorney in Ohio to concentrate in this area. His work covered immigrant and non-immigrant visas, naturalization, deportation and asylum, with much of it on PERM labour certification, national interest waivers and outstanding research petitions.

The site records that he was named an Ohio Super Lawyer for the years 2006 through 2019, and identifies him as a Leading Lawyer. Those are the recognitions the firm itself publishes, and I report them as its own record rather than as my assessment.

The named specialisms tell you something concrete about where the founder's practice sat. PERM and national interest waivers are employment-based routes. Outstanding research petitions apply to academics and scientists with a documented publication record. All three demand heavy evidentiary files rather than short forms.

What a firm founded in 1973 has lived through

The founding year is worth pausing on. A practice that opened in 1973 predates the 1986 amnesty legislation, the 1990 Immigration Act, the 1996 reforms that reshaped removal proceedings, the creation of the Department of Homeland Security in 2003 and every administrative programme layered on since. Immigration rules change with each of those, and the paperwork changes with them.

Continuity of that length is uncommon in any legal field. It means the firm has processed the same categories of case under several generations of statute and several generations of agency practice.

How these matters usually proceed

General context helps in reading a practice area list like this one, so the following describes how such matters typically run rather than anything specific to the firm.

Applications and petitions

Family immigration and green card cases usually start with a petition filed with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. A qualifying relationship has to be documented. Depending on the category and the applicant's country, a visa number may then have to become available before the case can finish, which is what the monthly Visa Bulletin tracks.

Employment cases add a layer. Many require the employer to test the labour market through the Department of Labor's PERM process first. A national interest waiver skips the employer sponsorship and the labour market test, and the applicant instead has to show that their proposed work has substantial merit and national importance, and that waiving the ordinary requirements benefits the United States. Evidence in those files runs to publications, citation records, letters from independent experts and documentation of the field itself.

Naturalization cases follow a narrower path. The applicant files, attends a biometrics appointment, then sits an interview covering the application, English and civics. Continuous residence and physical presence get checked against travel history, and good moral character gets checked against any record of arrests or unpaid obligations.

Defensive cases

Deportation defence runs through the immigration courts, which sit within the Department of Justice rather than the agency that decides applications. A case begins with a Notice to Appear. Hearings divide into master calendar appearances, which are short and procedural, and individual merits hearings, where evidence and testimony are heard. Relief applications get filed inside that proceeding.

Asylum cases can arrive by two routes: affirmatively, through an asylum office interview, or defensively, as relief inside removal proceedings. Either way the applicant has to establish past persecution or a well-founded fear of it, tied to a protected ground, and the file typically combines a detailed personal declaration with country conditions evidence.

VAWA self-petitions allow certain spouses, children and parents who have suffered abuse by a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident relative to file on their own behalf. The abusive relative is not notified. That confidentiality is a structural feature of the statute, and it shapes how these cases are prepared.

Immigration litigation covers federal court work: petitions for review of Board of Immigration Appeals decisions in the courts of appeals, and district court actions such as mandamus suits over long-delayed applications. It sits outside the agency system entirely.

Where the firm works

The office is in Cincinnati, Ohio. The firm names Hamilton County, Warren County and Butler County among the areas it serves, which is the southwestern corner of the state around the city.

Geography works differently in immigration than in most practices, though. Much of the decision-making happens at federal service centres and consular posts, not at a local courthouse. The firm says it works with clients in Cincinnati, elsewhere in the United States and abroad, and a filing-based caseload supports that reach.

What the site documents

As a reviewer, what stands out in the published material is specificity about the founder and the case types. The firm gives a founding year, names its attorneys with their titles, lists eleven practice areas by name and identifies the specific petition types the founder concentrated on. Those are checkable claims rather than atmosphere.

The site does not publish biographies for Neil Fleischer or Christopher M. Pogue, nor law schools or admission years for any of the three attorneys. A prospective client who wants those details would need to ask.

The firm offers a free initial consultation. The legal entity is The Fleischer Law Firm LLC, and the same name appears on the home, about and contact pages and in the site's structured data. Founded in 1973, it has practised immigration law under that focus for more than fifty years.