Greg gives talk on our approach to future of law

December 5, 2014
Greg McLawsen
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I was happy to have a chance on Wednesday to talk about the approach we’re taking at Puget Sound Legal to tackling the future of law. One Million Cups is a project of the Kauffman Foundation that connects small business leaders, helping them brainstorm how to better serve their goals. Yesterday I talked with the Million Cups crowd about the tools we use at PSL to help better serve our clients. Among other things, we use technology to make it easy for our clients to connect with their attorneys, and we use decentralized contract attorneys and staff to help ensure our clients’ needs are met in a timely fashion.

It was great to have an enthusiastic response from the crowd, who understood we’re doing something different from traditional law firms. Stay tuned for an upcoming story from the University of Washington Tacoma, which will feature the firm and our new associate attorney, Gustavo Cueva, who graduated cum laude from UW-T.

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Greg McLawsen

Greg is recognized as the leading national authority on enforcement of the Form I-864, Affidavit of Support. Greg represents low-income green card holders in lawsuits to recover support from their sponsors. Practicing family-based immigration law, Greg also focuses on helping married and engaged couples with U.S. immigration.

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What goes into an I-864 Affidavit of Support lawsuit complaint?
I’ve been representing clients in lawsuits to enforce the USCIS Form I-864, Affidavit of Support for about a decade at this point. Over that time, I’ve made a lot of changes to the template that we use for federal lawsuit complaints. (A complaint is the initial case document that sets forth the plaintiff’s legal claim…
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Can you enforce the Form I-864 Affidavit of Support in a divorce case?
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In an important ruling for one of our I-864 enforcement clients, a Court ruled today that damages under the USCIS Form I-864, Affidavit of Support are determined based on taxable income. In Flores v. Flores, the Western District of Washington ruled that the term “income” is governed by the definition contained at 8 C.F.R. §…
How do you settle a claim under the USCIS Form I-864, Affidavit of Support?
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Can you enforce the Form I-864 Affidavit of Support with a preliminary injunction?
Non-citizens needing to enforce the USCIS Form I-864, Affidavit of Support are usually in serious need of help. To have a claim under the Affidavit, their income needs to be below 125 percent of the poverty line. That’s about $1,400 per month for a household of one. But a lawsuit can take months or even…
What affirmative defenses are available to Form I-864 sponsors? None.
The Eleventh Circuit has held that the common law defenses of unclean hands, anticipatory breach, and equitable estoppel are unavailable to a sponsor who has signed a USCIS Form I-864, Affidavit of Support. Blevich v. Thomas, 17 F.4th 1048 (11th Cir. 2021). Belevich joins a growing line of cases that stand for the proposition that…
The federal right to immigration “alimony” under the Form I-864, Affidavit of Support
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How long does the I-864 support last?
A sponsor's obligation under the Form I-864 lasts indefinitely. It terminates only upon one of five Terminating Events, including when the green card holder has 40 quarters of work or becomes a U.S. citizen. It *does not* terminate automatically after ten years, even though lawyers mistakenly

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