Attorney José E. Latour immigrated to the U.S. from Cuba with his parents at the age of four. Growing up in South Florida, he attended the University of Florida for both undergraduate and law studies. Upon graduating law school, Mr. Latour was appointed to the U.S. Department of State as a Diplomatic and Consular Officer by the late President Ronald Reagan. After serving abroad in Mexico and Equatorial Guinea (Africa), he left government service to begin private law practice.
Focusing on business immigration, international trade, and consular law, the firm rapidly expanded in the 1990s, opening branch offices in Washington D.C., Manila (Philippines), and Hong Kong. In 2003, Mr. Latour sold his US immigration practice and co-founded One World Development, a non-profit organization created to battle malaria in Equatorial Guinea, West Africa, where he had served as administrative officer for the State Department; the project, funded by the U.S. oil industry, ultimately resulted in a dramatic reduction in malaria-caused infant mortality. Upon completion of the five year contract, in 2008 he returned to private practice, since focusing exclusively on representing high net worth individuals and families and structuring EB-5 projects for U.S. and international businesses and developers.
In 1992, shortly after beginning private practice, Mr. Latour received the highest possible A/V peer rating by Martindale-Hubble law directory, a distinction which he has preserved continuously until today. Long a proponent of technology in the practice of law, he pioneered the concept of Internet-based delivery of legal services in the 1990s, providing direct client case management online for a broad spectrum of leading national healthcare and technology clients. Port of Entry, his daily Web column - online long before the term "blog" existed - had over 30,000 daily readers in its prime in the 1990s. Mr. Latour has received a number of awards and distinctions from organizations including Inc. Magazine, Florida Trend Magazine, and Cisco Systems.