Sharon Mehlman

Our diverse staff comprised of over thirty attorneys and paraprofessionals (paralegals, legal assistants, and administrative staff) brings a wide array of talents, education, and experience to their positions. The Firm employs individuals who are proficient in Spanish, Italian, French, Russian, Japanese and Chinese. Almost all members of our staff have a bachelor's degree, and several hold advanced degrees.

Our firm has extensive experience in many aspects of immigration law, including all nonimmigrant visa classifications; labor certifications; employment-based and family-based immigrant visas; and adjustment of status and consular processing cases. Our attorneys’ substantive knowledge includes a full understanding of all potential ancillary issues, such as compliance with I-9 and workplace enforcement issues; grounds of inadmissibility to and removal from the United States; and laws and policies relating to national security. In addition, our attorneys are very active in the American Immigration Lawyers' Association at local and national levels, which enhances our firm’s knowledge of constantly changing laws, policies and procedures, and allows the Firm to make positive contributions to such changes.

BIO

Sharon Mehlman is a graduate of the University of San Diego, School of Law where she earned her Juris Doctorate degree. Prior to law school, Ms. Mehlman completed her undergraduate work in Political Science at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) graduating with a Bachelor of Arts. Ms. Mehlman joined the firm in 1998 and has over 10 years of experience in the field of immigration law. Prior to joining the firm, Ms. Mehlman worked in the Human Resources area in the biotechnology industry.
  
Together with Fausta Albi and Diana Vellos Coker, Ms. Mehlman is responsible for all aspects of Firm management and provides legal counsel on immigration matters to corporate clients.

Ms. Mehlman is a member of the American Bar Association, the California Bar Association, the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) and is active in the community. She is also a member of the Alliance of Business Immigration Lawyers, a group of leading immigration attorneys who work together on "best practices". Ms. Mehlman is past Chairperson, Vice Chairperson and Secretary of the San Diego Chapter of AILA and is a frequent speaker on business immigration issues. She is also past Chairperson of AILA’s California Service Center (CSC) liaison committee. Ms. Mehlman is currently the Chair of AILA’s USCIS Service Center Operations (SCOPS) Committee and AILA’s USCIS Benefits Committee where she works with USCIS Headquarters on a variety of immigration issues. 

Ms. Mehlman has served on a number of other immigration committees at the local and national level and has been involved in the planning of many immigration conferences. She is named in Who’s Who Legal: California 2007 and 2008, International Who’s Who Legal 2008 and was also a finalist for the 2006 San Diego Transcript’s Attorney of the Year.  Ms. Mehlman is listed in The Best Lawyers in America for 2008 and 2009 and was recently named in the San Diego Magazine’s list of Best Lawyers.