Solow, Hartnett and Galvan, LLC

Focus and where the work happens

Immigration law is the single field this firm works in. It runs offices in three places: Philadelphia on Walnut Street, Collingswood in New Jersey, and Kennett Square, in Chester County, Pennsylvania. The spread across the Philadelphia area and southern New Jersey gives clients more than one place to meet counsel, and it puts the firm within reach of the immigration courts and government offices that handle these cases.

The firm registers as Solow, Hartnett and Galvan, LLC, and its website does not state a founding year. In my opinion the clearest thing to read from the setup is focus: a single-subject firm sees the same procedural questions again and again, and that repetition tends to build a working familiarity with how a given office or judge operates.

How the partnership is built

The site names twelve attorneys across partner, senior associate, associate, junior associate, and of-counsel roles. Five hold the partner title: Adam Solow, Matthew Hartnett, Christina Galvan, Thomas Griffin, and Matthew I. Hirsch. Adam Solow works on family-based immigration and naturalization, non-immigrant visas, deportation defense, and appellate matters.

Matthew Hartnett litigates removal defense before the United States Immigration Courts and the Board of Immigration Appeals, and his cases include asylum, withholding of removal, cancellation of removal, adjustment of status, and complex waivers. Christina Galvan has practiced immigration law throughout her legal career, is a native Spanish speaker, and is the daughter of immigrants. A Spanish-speaking partner matters in this field, where a client's account of events often carries the case and needs to reach counsel without a translator in the middle.

Thomas Griffin has worked in immigration law for more than twenty years, with attention to deportation cases, and he represents people who are detained, held at the border, or living with their families while a matter proceeds. Matthew I. Hirsch brings thirty years of experience and once ran a boutique firm in Wayne, Pennsylvania. He is a graduate of Delaware Law School and teaches as an adjunct professor.

Employment-based and family petitions

Matthew I. Hirsch carries much of the employer-side work, among it visas in the H-1B, L-1, TN, O and P, E-2, and E-3 categories. He also files green cards for people of extraordinary ability and for advanced-degree immigrants, along with family-sponsored residence and citizenship applications. The firm advises employers on I-9 compliance too, the paperwork that documents a worker's authorization to be hired. Employer petitions run on fixed government timelines, so an attorney who has tracked these categories for years knows where a filing tends to stall.

Lindsay Eury has worked in employment-based immigration since 2011 and handles immigrant and non-immigrant visas for companies of different sizes. She spent more than a decade with the Law Office of Matthew I. Hirsch before joining Solow, Hartnett and Galvan, and she is a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Eury and Hirsch share a history in the same visa work, so the employer side of the firm has more than one experienced hand.

Family-based petitions make up the other part of this side of the firm. These cases pass through United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, and often a consulate abroad, before a relative can join a household in the States. Adam Solow and junior associate Arabelis Brito both list family-based immigration among their areas. The firm also handles student and exchange visas and the consular processing step that moves an approved petition to an interview at a post overseas.

Removal defense and appeals

A large share of the roster centers on removal defense, the work of keeping a client in the country when the government moves to deport them. Tom Brannen has practiced immigration law for nearly thirty years and has litigated removal cases before the Immigration Courts, the Board of Immigration Appeals, and the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. His focuses include asylum, withholding of removal, cancellation of removal, adjustment of status, and complex waivers, and he appears before USCIS and other Department of Homeland Security sub-agencies.

Melissa Aaron-Cooper concentrates on 601-A provisional waivers of unlawful presence and takes removal matters that include bond hearings, asylum, withholding of removal, cancellation of removal, requests for prosecutorial discretion, and motions to reopen and terminate. Arabelis Brito, the firm's junior associate, works on removal defense, family-based immigration, waivers, and affirmative asylum cases.

Removal cases follow a set path. A person receives a charging document, appears before an immigration judge, and can seek relief such as asylum or cancellation of removal. An adverse ruling can move to the Board of Immigration Appeals and, in some matters, to a federal circuit court, which is why several of these attorneys handle both hearings and appeals. The firm also files federal actions such as writ of mandamus and habeas corpus petitions, the tools that put a stalled or unlawful government decision in front of a district judge.

Writing, victim visas, and outside counsel

Dennis Mulligan works of-counsel with the firm and has done so since 2021, after almost thirty years in immigration and refugee matters. His role centers on written advocacy: appellate and trial briefs, motions, complaints, and other filings for Immigration Court, the Board of Immigration Appeals, and federal court. As a reviewer, I read a named brief-writer on the roster as a sign that the firm treats its appellate paperwork as its own craft.

Kate Brown handles T and U visas for victims of crime and represents workers who have faced exploitation on the job, and she appears before USCIS on a range of matters. These humanitarian categories carry their own evidence burden, since an applicant usually has to show both the harm suffered and, for a U visa, cooperation with law enforcement.

Fiona Powell earned her J.D. from Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law in 2025, with a focus on public interest and immigration law. As Co-President of Villanova's Immigration Law Society she led pro bono legal clinics for immigrant communities around Philadelphia, and her earlier experience includes a Paoli immigration firm and a Philadelphia nonprofit. The firm also offers co-counsel and local counsel help to other lawyers, which puts its immigration work at the service of attorneys whose main practice lies elsewhere.

What a prospective client can verify

The firm publishes its three office locations and a Facebook page, and it lists each attorney with a title and biography. Two education details appear on the site: Matthew I. Hirsch is a graduate of Delaware Law School, and Fiona Powell holds a 2025 J.D. from Villanova. Bar admission years and most law schools do not appear on the site, so a client who wants those details can raise them on a first call.

Across twelve attorneys, the work spans courtroom removal defense, employer visa petitions, and humanitarian applications for crime victims. In my opinion the firm's shape fits its subject: enough hands to staff both a trial docket and a filing practice, with a named writer for the appeals that follow. What the site shows is a single-focus immigration firm with a dozen lawyers working three offices in the Philadelphia region.