While most immigration lawyers finding themselves in Nashville today are waking up in the opulent Gaylord, ready to begin the 2012 American Immigration Lawyers’ Association (AILA) national gathering, I instead woke up at a friend’s home, somewhere in the lush suburbs of the Music City, being stared down by grinning 2 year old wearing a cowboy hat.
A combination of too many miles and too many CLE credits led me to forgo this year’s AILA National Convention, and my job ended at 6 pm yesterday, with the wrap up of Sam Udani’s (ILW.COM) EB-5 CLE seminar, and today is “catch up with the 800 emails from 24 time zones” day before heading back to Miami tomorrow. After speaking at a number of ILW events, Sam asked me to be the moderator for the panel and, as usual, Sam delivered a line up of the best and brightest in this rapidly evolving field of EB-5. Again,”as usual”, all of the presentations were invaluable for the mixed crowd of seasoned EB-5 practitioners and other immigration attorneys just dipping their respective toes into the EB-5 pool. These were, for me, the highlights:
- Ryan Conway’s (Dominus Property Partners) candid, insightful presentation on the reality of being in the business of running an EB-5 Regional Center and the endless struggles to identify intelligent investments while worrying about an often-inconsistent USCIS adjudication process;
- Ignacio Donoso’s superb presentation on “perfecting the I-924 petition” (which, as I told him, made my own presentation on the same subject in NY last month seem pretty lame!)
- The brilliant Bob Gaffney’s energized, high-speed discussion on proving Source of Funds in EB-5 filings;
- Mona Shaw’s intriguing analysis on an emerging topic, “Removal issues in EB-5”.
As if all that wasn’t enough, AILA National Past Presidents Steven Yale-Loehr and Denyse Sabagh presented genuinely fascinating – that’s not hyperbole, honest — discussions on I-829 issues/solutions and legal ethics as relating to EB-5, respectively. Having the attention span of a gnat, I can only tell you that ending a 9.5 hour day at 6 pm while still taking notes and enjoying the snappy Q&A is not the norm for me. (-: You did it again, Sam, congrats and thanks for letting me be a part of a great event!
I have a lot stuff to tell you guys regarding the latest from Far Eastern markets (from which I just got back this past weekend), big changes at LatourLaw, and exciting new collaborations…I’ll get on that as soon as I can climb off the email mountain. In the meantime, best wishes to my colleagues in Nashville for a successful AILA National Conference…look for me somewhere near the Wildhorse tonight, where I’ll be with my friend Jack Daniels, watching the Heat try to regain momentum. Peace. J
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