Charles W. Pley is the founder and principal attorney of the firm. He has over 25 years experience in immigration law, both inside government and in private practice. He is an award-winning immigration professional and certified by the Law Society of Upper Canada as a Specialist in Immigration and Citizenship Law. He received his Juris Doctor degree from Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto, Canada and studied at The Hague Academy of International Law in the Netherlands. He is a former Canadian diplomat and overseas visa officer, and is dual-licensed as a lawyer in Ontario, Canada (1985) and in New York, U.S.A. (1992). He is also licensed by the Law Society of Upper Canada as a Foreign Legal Consultant (U.S. law).
Mr. Pley has had diplomatic postings as a Visa Officer at the Canadian Consulate General in Detroit, the Canadian High Commission in Singapore, the Canadian Embassy in Germany and at National Headquarters in Ottawa, Canada as Legal Advisor in the Consular and Immigration Affairs Branch. He has also lived and worked in Taiwan and Vancouver and since 1994 has been in private practice focused on Canadian, U.S. and international immigration solutions for high net worth individuals, professionals, SMEs and multinational companies.
Mr. Pley is recognized in particular as a leading practitioner with respect to business immigration, both to Canada and the USA. He is a panel immigration lawyer to a major international financial institution involved in investor-related immigration, and has published numerous articles and has made presentations to the American Immigration Lawyers Association, the Canadian Bar Association and the Law Society of Upper Canada Continuing Legal Education seminars on business immigration topics.
Mr. Pley has been invited by CIC to provide training sessions for Immigration Officers, and has consulted with government officials in Canada on immigration policy. He has been a guest lecturer for the Queen's and Cornell University Joint Executive MBA Human Resources - Strategic Recruitment program. The former Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, the Honourable Denis Coderre, appointed Charles W. Pley to a special Ministerial Advisory Committee on the Regulation of Immigration Consultants, culminating in a report to the Minister used as the blueprint for the current regime for regulating non-lawyer immigration consultants. He has been on a blue-chip Immigration Certificate Program advisory panel to Seneca College in Toronto, and has lectured on Canadian Immigration Practice and Procedure at the College.
He is the recipient of the 2007 Leadership Award from Seneca College, and a Lifetime Contribution to the Immigration Industry Award from the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants (CSIC), where he has been made an Honourary Fellow and Lifetime Member. He is also a member of the Canadian Bar Association Citizenship and Immigration Section, Ontario Bar Association, the American Immigration Lawyers Association and is a Fellow of the Canadian Association of Professional Immigration Consultants (CAPIC).
Charles Pley is based in Toronto and frequently travels to our correspondent offices internationally to meet clients.