© 2017 The Texas Lawbook.
By Brooks Igo of the The Texas Lawbook and Candace Carlisle of the Dallas Business Journal
(Dec. 19) – One of the largest corporate immigration law firms in the world is combining its Dallas and Richardson offices to create a national operations hub – which is expected to be its largest office in the next few years – for the San Francisco-based firm.
Berry Appleman & Leiden (BAL) is moving into 61,380 square feet at the former Verizon campus in Richardson in March 2018. The office will be home to more than 185 attorneys, paralegals and staff from the firm’s current North Texas outposts.
By 2020, BAL, which has 825 employees worldwide, expects the new Richardson hub to grow to 320 people and become the firm’s largest of its 18 offices, according to a press release announcing the move. BAL’s client list includes a “who’s who of Silicon Valley” that includes major internet, social media and financial services companies.
“The appeal of Richardson from a cost, infrastructure and growth standpoint was key in terms of consolidating our two offices here,” Jeremy Fudge, managing partner of BAL, said. “The city and the chamber are doing some really exciting things to reinvent itself, draw in innovative companies, and entice their people to move here.”
The former Verizon campus — a four-building, 388,600-square-foot office complex — has undergone a $6.5 million redevelopment to re-position the aging campus into a Class A office complex with the ability to lure companies to Richardson.
BAL is one of the first office tenants to occupy the 28-year-old property after Verizon’s departure in January. The firm expects to continue its rapid growth in Richardson, with another 50 employees expected to be on-site at the new office by the end of next year.
The move comes at a time, Fudge says, when global trends of nationalist, protectionist agendas and the rhetoric of the Trump administration are creating a challenging immigration environment for international corporate recruiting.
Though no law has changed in the U.S., Fudge says government agencies granting corporate visas have shifted to a posture of denial and have been asking for more discovery.
“It makes our value go up but makes our jobs more difficult,” Fudge says. “We have such an impact on people’s lives. The stakes are huge.”
While the U.S. appears to be pivoting to a more “lock-it-down,” restrictionist stance on immigration, other countries have responded with “open arms” to attract top foreign talent. Fudge points specifically to Canada’s global skills visa program, which launched in June.
Another ongoing interest for BAL and its clients has been President Trump’s threats to leave or significantly renegotiate NAFTA. Fudge says clients have been concerned about what will happen to their employees who are working on TN visas.
“You have to react to every tweet,” Fudge says.
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