In 1994, when Greg Siskind and Lynn Susser founded the immigration law firm Siskind Susser, the former bought a book about HTML, and built a company website — which, at the time, was a novelty.
“Greg had the first immigration law firm website,” said Jason Susser, Lynn’s son and an attorney with the firm. “Technology has always been what helps us punch above our weight.”
That trend still holds true today, as four of the firm's employees — Siskind, Lynn and Jason Susser, and chief innovation officer Josh Waddell — are the founders of Visalaw.AI, a technology company that provides a variety of tools and apps to immigration law firms, businesses, and clientele.
Process automation
The idea for Visalaw.AI came around 2016, when Siskind Susser staffers sought to standardize processes across the business. They began to realize they could save time by automizing a lot of internal processes, and that other immigration law firms could benefit from similar adjustments.
The venture's founders began to develop various products and services, which they would both use, and sell. In 2020, with the offerings gaining traction, Visalaw.AI was spun out of the business, and it became a separate company with significant growth potential.
“There are [about] 15,000 immigration lawyers in U.S.,” Jason Susser said. “Most of them are in solo to small law firms, so most immigration lawyers in U.S. are not big enough to develop their own technology. … I think it is reasonable that a large percentage of those [could need] our technology.”
But what exactly does Visalaw.AI offer?
The company, which partners with tech firms to create the software, has a variety of services.
One, for example, is a website bot, which was only recently completed. Though Susser is quick to note that this bot isn’t like other, more pestersome ones.
“Bots can be pretty annoying, and pretty cheesy — the lawyer jumping off the side of the screen asking about your product,” he said. [This bot] is not for lead generation or something like that. Our bot is intended for someone who already wants to have a consultation with you.”
The bot’s function is to walk clients through a legal analysis, helping flag potential issues for lawyers that will come up in consultation. Siskind Susser’s lawyers spent more than 100 hours creating its legal logic, and programmers then coded it.
If someone is interested in a consultation, they’ll be directed to the bot, which will then schedule an appointment on the lawyer’s calendar, accept payment, gather basic information, and take them through a series of questions in the analysis.
The compiled information, Susser explained, is helpful for any lawyer, but especially younger ones.
“A lot of young lawyers spend time looking at their meetings for the day, then researching issues to make sure they understand them correctly,” he said. “A client will say, ‘I want to talk to you about [an issue],’ but they're not actually even eligible for [that issue]. By having them work through the logic on the front end, a lawyer can be more prepared, to actually be on top of the right issues.”
Access filings
Another example of an offering is the company’s app for H-1B visa filings. H-1B visas are one of the most common work visas in the U.S., and when a business fills out an application for one, they must create a public access filing, which can be tedious and complicated.
An immigration law firm might send an email to the company in question, say they need to create a public access file, and attach a number of word documents, with sections on them, that need to be filled out.
“It’s very old school, and also really time consuming,” Susser said. “So, not only do a lot of people mess up public access files, I would be willing to bet a lot of people don’t do them at all, or don’t do them right. It’s a compliance issue, a liability.”
The offering from VisawLaw.AI, however, streamlines the process for businesses. The app asks them questions, lets them type in answers, and then creates one file.
These, however, are just two examples of the programs it offers. Some apps are free, and designed to provide pivotal information to immigrants and foreign nationals. For example, amid the travel bans of the Trump administration, they created a travel ban advisor app, which would tell someone if a particular travel ban applied to them.
In an email, Waddell told MBJ that right now, VisaLaw.AI had about 120 organizations using its products, and these ranged from startups to publicly traded companies. He also said that, though there are a few law firms that use its services, many of the law firm-focused products are still in development.
