Conor Schneider

Honestly, if it comes in the door, I'll try to find a solution. But a lot of what I do centers on student entrepreneurs: foreign nationals who want to start a company and stay in the U.S. after they graduate. That path usually begins with STEM OPT and grows into a founder H-1B, an E-1 or E-2, or an O-1. From there, it often moves toward something permanent like an EB-1 or an EB-2 National Interest Waiver. I also handle plenty of TNs and L-1As for cross-border executives, along with family-based cases, where the reward is simply helping people be together. 

What I love most is being there for the whole journey. You can take someone from a temporary visa, get them the work authorization they need, move them to a green card, and eventually all the way to naturalization. Watching that arc play out is the best part of the job. 

Before I think about any specific visa, I want to understand where a client is right now, their current status and full immigration history. Then I ask a simple question: if immigration weren't a factor at all, what would you actually want to be doing? Once I know the real goal, I work backward from it. Sometimes there's no straight line, and getting there takes a series of side steps. 

The thing people underestimate most is timing and sequencing. They fixate on the exciting filing and don't see that something less glamorous has to happen first. Small things carry real weight, like a wrong box checked or an old job description online that doesn't match the titles you're claiming now. Everything you hand the government has to paint one consistent picture, or you trigger an RFE you never needed. Immigration also runs on two separate tracks, nonimmigrant and immigrant, and you often have to keep both moving at once. I happen to own an old train station, so I explain it in railroad terms: You've got to keep your trains on the right tracks and switch them at the right moment. 

I joined Serotte Immigration Partners as a law clerk in 2022 and have worked on close to a thousand matters since. That volume is where the judgment comes from: I can flag a problem up front, while there's still time to fix it. I'm advising from cases I've watched all the way through, not from theory. 

I think of my role as a guide. Immigration usually isn't black and white, so I lay out the options honestly and give my recommendation, but I let you make the call. I'll also tell you the truth even if it isn't what you were hoping to hear. And I'm a stickler for the details, because everything that leaves this office with my name on it is something I'm prepared to stand behind. The details are the case. 

If a client remembered one thing about working with me, I'd want it to be that I cared and thought their case through completely.