dismissed L-1A Case: Law

U.S. Citizenship 
and Immigration 
Services 
In Re: 8375395 
Appeal of Texas Service Center Decision 
Form 1-129, Petition for L-lA Manager or Executive 
Non-Precedent Decision of the 
Administrative Appeals Office 
Date : MAY 21, 2020 
The Petitioner, a law firm, seeks to temporarily employ the Beneficiary as the managing partner of its 
new office 1 in the United States under the L-lA nonimmigrant classification for intracompany 
transferees . Immigration and Nationality Act (the Act) section 101(a)(15)(L), 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(15)(L) . 
The Director of the Texas Service Center denied the petition concluding the record did not establish 
that the Beneficiary was employed abroad in a managerial or executive capacity. 
On appeal, the Petitioner reiterates the Beneficiary's asserted foreign duties and contends that she acts 
in a managerial or executive capacity abroad. 
Upon de nova review, we will dismiss the appeal. In these proceedings, it is the Petitioner's burden 
to establish eligibility for the requested benefit. Section 291 of the Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1361. 
I. LEGAL FRAMEWORK 
To establish eligibility for the L-lA nonimrnigrant visa classification in a petition involving a new 
office, a qualifying organization must have employed the beneficiary in a managerial or executive 
capacity for one continuous year within three years preceding the beneficiary's application for 
admission into the United States. 8 C.F.R. § 214.2(1)(3)(v)(B). In addition, the beneficiary must seek 
to enter the United States temporarily to continue rendering their services to the same employer or a 
subsidiary or affiliate thereof in a managerial or executive capacity. Id. 
The petitioner must submit evidence to demonstrate that the new office will be able to support a 
managerial or executive position within one year. This evidence must establish that the petitioner 
secured sufficient physical premises to house its operation and disclose the proposed nature and scope 
of the entity, its organizational structure, its financial goals, and the size of the U.S. investment. See 
generally, 8 C.F.R. § 214.2(1)(3)(v). 
1 The term "new office" refers to an organization which has been doing business in the United States for less than one year. 
8 C.F.R. § 214.2(l)(l)(ii)(F). The regulation at 8 C.F.R. § 214 .2(1)(3)(v)(C) allows a "new office" operation no more than 
one year within the date of approval of the petition to support an executive or managerial position. 
II. MANAGERIAL OR EXECUTIVE CAP A CITY WITH THE FOREIGN EMPLOYER 
The sole issue we will analyze is whether the Petitioner established that the Beneficiary is employed 
abroad in a managerial or executive capacity. As noted by the Director, the Petitioner did not clearly 
articulate whether the Beneficiary was employed abroad in a managerial or an executive capacity, 
despite the Director clearly noting this deficiency. The Petitioner still does not clarify this issue on 
appeal. 
A petitioner claiming that a beneficiary will perform as a "hybrid" manager/executive will not meet 
its burden of proof unless it has demonstrated that the beneficiary will primarily engage in either 
managerial or executive capacity duties. See section 10l(a)(44)(A)-(B) of the Act. While in some 
instances there may be duties that could qualify as both managerial and executive in nature, it is the 
petitioner's burden to establish that the beneficiary's duties meet each criteria set forth in the statutory 
definition for either managerial or executive capacity. A petition may not be approved if the evidence 
of record does not establish that the beneficiary will be primarily employed in either a managerial or 
executive capacity. 
"Managerial capacity" means an assignment within an organization in which the employee primarily 
manages the organization, or a department, subdivision, function, or component of the organization; 
supervises and controls the work of other supervisory, professional, or managerial employees, or 
manages an essential function within the organization, or a department or subdivision of the 
organization; has authority over personnel actions or functions at a senior level within the 
organizational hierarchy or with respect to the function managed; and exercises discretion over the 
day-to-day operations of the activity or function for which the employee has authority. Section 
10l(a)(44)(A) of the Act, 8 U.S.C. § l 10l(a)(44)(A). 
The statute defines an "executive capacity" as an assignment within an organization in which the 
employee primarily directs the management of the organization or a major component or function of 
the organization; establishes the goals and policies of the organization, component, or function; 
exercises wide latitude in discretionary decision-making; and receives only general supervision or 
direction from higher-level executives, the board of directors, or stockholders of the organization. 
Section 10l(a)(44)(B) of the Act. 
When examining the foreign managerial or executive capacity of a given beneficiary, we will review 
the petitioner's description of the foreign job duties. The petitioner's description of the foreign job 
duties must clearly describe the duties to be performed by the beneficiary and indicate whether such 
duties are in a managerial or executive capacity. See 8 C.F.R. § 214.2(1)(3)(ii). Beyond the required 
description of the foreign job duties, we examine the foreign employer's organizational structure, the 
duties of a beneficiary's foreign subordinates, the presence of foreign employees to relieve a 
beneficiary from performing operational duties, the nature of the foreign business, and any other 
factors that will contribute to understanding a beneficiary's actual duties and role abroad. 
Accordingly, we will discuss evidence regarding the Beneficiary's foreign job duties along with 
evidence of the nature of the foreign employer's business, its staffing levels, and its organizational 
structure. 
A. Duties 
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If the Petitioner establishes that the offered position meets all elements set forth in the statutory 
definition, the Petitioner must prove that the Beneficiary will be primarily engaged in managerial or 
executive duties, as opposed to ordinary operational activities alongside the Petitioner's other 
employees. See Family Inc. v. USCIS, 469 F.3d 1313, 1316 (9th Cir. 2006). 
The Petitioner indicated that the Beneficiary's foreign employer was a "professional law partnership" 
in China "specializing in legal services related to financial investment including litigation, arbitration, 
finance, securities, real estate, investment, corporate taxation, joint-venture partnerships, overseas 
investment, and family wealth management." The Petitioner stated that the Beneficiary was the 
founding partner of the foreign employer in 2004 and a principal of the company and that it has several 
high-end clients in China, such as commercial banks and insurance and securities companies. The 
Petitioner emphasized that the Beneficiary specializes in finance law and indicated she "consulted 
dozens of state-owned Chinese banks, public commercial banks, financial institutes [sic], securities 
corporations, trustee and insurance companies." The Petitioner explained that the Beneficiary "acted 
as the leading attorney for the successful debt restructuring of. .. a leading pharmaceutical company in 
China" and indicating that "this case won [her] great acclaim in the area of disposal and restructuring 
of distressed assets." It also stated that the Beneficiary had argued before China's Supreme Court, 
"recovered billions of Chinese Yuan for her clients, and published two books on debt law issues. 
In the request for evidence (RFE), the Director stated that the foreign duties submitted for the 
Beneficiary were too general and requested that it provide her typical daily managerial or executive­
level duties. In response, the Petitioner provided the following foreign duty description: 
Management of the Law Firm (55% of overall time spent) 
Finance (20% of overall time spent) 
As member of our law firm's finance committee, she is responsible for reviewing 
and determining the annual budget of our law firm. She also oversees the financial 
status of the law firm and determines expenditure of the law firm above certain 
threshold[s] (which is determined by the partners meeting annually). 
Human Resources (25% of overall time spent) 
[The Beneficiary] as head of our law firm's human resources committee is 
responsible for the overall human resources development. Together with other 
members of [the] human resources committee, she determines the staffing structure 
and staffing level of our law firm, coordinates with head of practicing groups as 
regards [to] recruiting strategy and organizes the annual appraisal of the attorneys 
and administrative staff. As head of our human resources committee, [the 
Beneficiary] has the final say on hiring and firing of all the employees of our law 
firm. 
Law Firm Administration (10% of overall time spent) 
With assistance of an administrative director who reports directly to [the 
Beneficiary], [the Beneficiary] oversees the administrative staff of our law firm 
which help make the practice of our attorneys easier and bring in businesses through 
marketing activities. 
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Head of Financial Practice Group (45% of overall time spent) 
As an acclaimed and experienced attorney in the financial sector, [the Beneficiary] has 
been acting as head of our Financial Practice Group which has three different teams 
(with each team focusing on a concrete practicing area) and fifteen attorneys. In the 
past five years, the Financial Practice Group has been contributing more than 60% of 
the revenues of our law firm. As head of the practice group, [the Beneficiary] is 
responsible for determining the direction of the practices of the Financial Practice 
Group, maintaining client relationship[s], overseeing the quality of services provided 
and determining the team/staffing structure of the practice group. She is also 
responsible for giving appraisal to work of member attorneys of the practice group and 
making recommendations as regards [to] their promotion and hiring. 
In denying the petition, the Director stated that the Beneficiary's duty description included several 
vague duties that could apply to any manager or executive in any industry and that these tasks provided 
little insight into the actual nature of her role. The Director also indicated that the Petitioner had 
provided few examples and little supporting documentation to substantiate the Beneficiary's 
managerial or executive level duties abroad. Upon review, we concur. Despite the Director discussing 
the lack of specifics and supporting evidence in the denial, the Petitioner has not provided any 
additional detail or documentation on appeal to properly substantiate that the Beneficiary primarily 
performed managerial or executive duties abroad. For instance, the Petitioner provides few examples 
and little supporting documentation to corroborate the annual budgets the Beneficiary set, the major 
expenditure decisions she made, human resources issues she oversaw, or the recruiting strategies she 
put in place. Likewise, the Petitioner submitted few details and little documentation to support the 
marketing activities she managed or financial practice matters she handled. 
To illustrate, the Petitioner only submitted three generic documents to substantiate the Beneficiary 
acting in her asserted role abroad. First, it provided a "Proposal on 2018 Annual Evaluation Results 
for Practicing Lawyer [sic]" from January 2019 listing all of the company's asserted attorneys by name 
and "grade level" with generic ratings as "excellent," "good," "competent," and "not competent." 
Similarly, the Petitioner provided two others documents from February 2019, one with a listing of all 
of its claimed attorneys along with proposed annual salaries and another asserting to be a partnership 
resolution accepting the two aforementioned documents. However, the Petitioner asserts that the 
Beneficiary was the founding member of a large Chinese law firm established in 2004 and that she 
has overseen a substantial organizational structure including over 30 attorneys and supporting staff 
since this time. Three generic supporting documents do not credibly establish the Beneficiary's 
claimed role abroad. 
There is no documentation to demonstrate the Beneficiary's delegation of duties to her numerous 
asserted subordinate attorneys and administrative staff, or her recovering "billions of Yuan" for clients, 
representing large companies in China, arguing before the Chinese Supreme Court, or publishing two 
legal books in China as claimed. Although it we acknowledge it would not be feasible for the 
Petitioner to provide documentation to support its every assertion, it is questionable that the Petitioner 
provided only three generic documents to substantiate the Beneficiary's claimed management of a 
large law firm abroad for approximately 15 years. Specifics are clearly an important indication of 
whether a beneficiary's duties are primarily executive in nature, otherwise meeting the definitions 
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would simply be a matter of reiterating the regulations. Fedin Bros. Co., Ltd. v. Sava, 724 F. Supp. 
1103, 1108 (E.D.N.Y. 1989), aff'd, 905 F.2d 41 (2d. Cir. 1990). 
The lack of detail and evidence to substantiate the Beneficiary's performance of managerial or 
executive-level duties is particularly noteworthy since the Petitioner also appears to indicate that she 
is engaged in providing direct legal services to clients, including recovering the asserted "billions" of 
yuan for clients and her "successful debt restructuring" for a "leading pharmaceutical company." 
Whether the Beneficiary is a managerial or executive employee turns on whether the Petitioner has 
sustained its burden of proving that their duties are "primarily" managerial or executive. See sections 
10l(a)(44)(A) and (B) of the Act. Here, the Petitioner does not sufficiently document what proportion 
of the Beneficiary's duties would be managerial or executive functions and what proportion would be 
non-qualifying. The Petitioner lists the Beneficiary's duties as including both managerial and 
executive tasks as well as the direct provision of services to clients but does not quantify the time she 
spends on these different duties. For this reason, we cannot determine whether the Beneficiary is 
primarily performing the duties of a manager or an executive. See IKEA US, Inc. v. US. Dept. of 
Justice, 48 F. Supp. 2d 22, 24 (D.D.C. 1999). 
Even though the Beneficiary holds a senior position within the foreign employer, the fact that she 
manages or directs the business does not necessarily establish eligibility for classification as an 
intracompany transferee in a managerial or executive capacity within the meaning of section 
101 (a)( 44) of the Act. By statute, eligibility for this classification requires that the duties of a foreign 
position be "primarily" managerial or executive in nature. Id. The Beneficiary may exercise discretion 
over the foreign employer's day-to-day operations and possess the requisite level of authority with 
respect to discretionary decision-making; however, the position descriptions alone are insufficient to 
establish that his actual duties abroad are primarily managerial or executive in nature. 
B. Staffing 
If staffing levels are used as a factor in determining whether an individual is acting in a managerial or 
executive capacity, the reasonable needs of the organization are taken into account in light of the 
overall purpose and stage of development of the organization. See section 101(a)(44)(C) of the Act. 
The Petitioner submitted a foreign organizational chart indicating that the Beneficiary oversaw a 
"practice supervision committee" consisting of three partners, a "public relations committee" with 
three partners, a human resources committee (including the Beneficiary at its head working with two 
other senior partners), and a finance and budget committee consisting of the Beneficiary and two other 
senior partners. The chart also reflected that the finance and budget committee supervised two 
accountants. The Beneficiary was further shown to oversee an administrative director supervising five 
administrative staff: a financial practice group with 14 attorneys, and a real estate practice group 
consisting of nine attorneys. Likewise, the chart indicated that the Beneficiary supervised a corporate 
and securities practice group with seven attorneys and an investment and financing practice group 
made up of six attorneys. The chart further showed that each practice group was led by a senior 
attorney and that the Beneficiary herself led the financial practice group. 
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As discussed, the Petitioner did not clearly specify whether the Beneficiary acted in a managerial or 
executive capacity, or both, despite the Director discussing this in the RFE and the denial decision. 
As such, we will address both. 
The statutory definition of"managerial capacity" allows for both "personnel managers" and "function 
managers." See section 10l(a)(44)(A) of the Act. Personnel managers are required to primarily 
supervise and control the work of other supervisory, professional, or managerial employees. Contrary 
to the common understanding of the word "manager," the statute plainly states that a "first line 
supervisor is not considered to be acting in a managerial capacity merely by virtue of the supervisor's 
supervisory duties unless the employees supervised are professional." Id. If a beneficiary directly 
supervises other employees, the beneficiary must also have the authority to hire and fire those 
employees, or recommend those actions, and take other personnel actions. 8 C.F.R. § 
214.2(1)(l)(ii)(B)(3). The Petitioner asserts the Beneficiary oversees managers and professionals 
abroad and does not explicitly assert that she qualifies as a function manager; therefore, we will only 
analyze whether she qualifies as a personnel manager abroad. 
The Petitioner has not submitted sufficient evidence to establish that the Beneficiary acts as a 
personnel manager abroad. As previously noted, despite asserting that the Beneficiary has been the 
managing partner of a law firm supervising an extensive organizational structure including over 30 
attorneys and approximately eight administrative staff: there is little documentation to substantiate her 
exercising personnel authority over any of her claimed subordinates. For instance, there is no credible 
evidence of the Beneficiary delegating duties to her numerous subordinates, taking personnel actions 
with respect to them, or performing other daily managerial tasks. For these reasons, we conclude the 
Petitioner has not sufficiently demonstrated that the Beneficiary acts as a personnel manager abroad. 
In fact, the Petitioner submitted a foreign employer "partnership agreement" listing ten law partners, 
including the Beneficiary; however, this document stated in section 3 that "all practice activities of 
[the foreign employer] ... shall be determined by the partners jointly ... every partner has the right of 
implementation and supervision." Further, this section also indicated that each partner would have an 
equal vote in the practice and equally control its assets. This document was also questionably dated 
in January 2017, despite the Petitioner's claim that the Beneficiary established the foreign employer 
as far back as 2004. The discrepancies in this document leave only further uncertainty as to the 
Petitioner's apparent assertion that she oversees several subordinate managers and professionals 
abroad. The Petitioner must resolve inconsistencies in the record with independent, objective evidence 
pointing to where the truth lies. Matter of Ho, 19 I&N Dec. 582, 591-92 (BIA 1988). 
The statutory definition of the term "executive capacity" focuses on a person's elevated position within 
a complex organizational hierarchy, including major components or functions of the organization, and 
that person's authority to direct the organization. Section 10l(a)(44)(B) of the Act. Under the statute, 
a beneficiary must have the ability to "direct the management" and "establish the goals and policies" 
of that organization. Inherent to the definition, the beneficiary must primarily focus on the broad goals 
and policies of the organization rather than the day-to-day operations of the enterprise. An individual 
will not be deemed an executive under the statute simply because they have an executive title or 
because they "direct" the enterprise as the owner or sole managerial employee. A beneficiary must 
also exercise "wide latitude in discretionary decision making" and receive only "general supervision 
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or direction from higher level executives, the board of directors, or stockholders of the organization." 
Id. 
For similar reasons as those discussed previously, the Petitioner has not sufficiently established that 
the Beneficiary acts in an executive capacity abroad. As noted, the Petitioner has provided little 
supporting documentation to corroborate that she acts at the head of a substantial foreign 
organizational chart including over 30 attorneys and approximately eight administrative staff The 
Petitioner only provided three generic documents from 2019 that do properly demonstrate her 
establishment of goals and policies for a large organization handling extensive legal matters. For these 
reasons, we cannot determine based on the evidence submitted whether the Beneficiary primarily 
performed executive level duties abroad, particularly since it also indicates that she was engaged in 
directly providing legal services and there is no evidence of her delegating these non-qualifying tasks 
to subordinates as asserted. Indeed, as explained, the Petitioner provides a claimed partnership 
agreement from 2017 that leaves substantial uncertainty as to the Beneficiary's authority, noting that 
even if the firm operates as claimed, she equally shares authority with several other partners. This 
document leaves only further question as to whether she acts in an executive-level role. Therefore, 
the Petitioner has not properly substantiated that the Beneficiary acts in an elevated position within a 
complex organizational hierarchy and that she is primarily engaged in establishing goals and policies 
rather than its day-to-day operations. 
In sum, the Petitioner has provided inconsistent and insufficient evidence to establish that the 
Beneficiary acts in a managerial or executive capacity with the foreign employer. 
ORDER: The appeal is dismissed. 
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