Would a law firm sponsor a work visa?

CityEntrepreneur
Tue, 20 May 2014 01:13:24 +0000

Yes, there are plenty of people with non-US backgrounds who are lawyers. Look at any law school’s yearbook, and there are plenty of foreign students, and the New York legal profession has plenty of people with non-US law degrees in it.

Why not just work for a UK law firm with a US branch office, and then transfer to the US branch office (likely NY), get an LLM in the US and be admitted to the NY bar? Then you can work anywhere, and you don’t have to go to the expense of getting a US BA or JD. I worked at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and people did that.

To answer the specific question, yes, a US law firm will sponsor you for a work visa. I would think that the job market would be tougher than the horrendous job market for US lawyers, though.