Founded in 2013, Gonzalez Olivieri LLC (“GOL”) has risen from a small solo law firm to a nationally recognized powerhouse in immigration law. Over the years, the firm has successfully represented clients before immigration courts, federal circuit courts of appeal, and the United States Supreme Court. GOL’s victories have helped reshape contemporary immigration law while providing exceptional client-focused services that help keep families and communities together.

The following is a conversation Manage HR magazine had with Raed Gonzalez, the Chairman of Gonzalez Olivieri LLC.

What challenges do your clients face today in the immigration space, and how is Gonzalez Olivieri effectively addressing these issues?

GOL routinely interacts with immigration advocates, from solo practitioners to some of the world’s most respected and recognized law firms. Through these interactions, and our own experiences, we have learned that the most pressing challenge facing immigration practitioners is controlling costs during the COVID-19 global pandemic while ensuring customer and staff safety and satisfaction. To address this challenge, GOL mandated firm-wide compliance with rigorous safety standards, including vaccinations, wearing personal protective equipment in the office, social distancing, and daily temperature checks for all employees and customers.

To control the costs associated with such safety measures, GOL enabled employees to work from home for several months by providing necessary resources and training to ensure success. Supporting telework enabled the firm to ensure proper social distancing at our office while also guaranteeing that GOL could spend fewer resources on personal protective equipment for employees conducting business on-site. The firm has also raised prices slightly while considering the needs of our loyal customers to ensure that the quality of our work product is not reduced or compromised due to the unique challenges brought about by the pandemic.

Please tell us a little more about yourself. Also, could you walk us through the immigration services that you offer on the basis of its methodology, features, and benefits involved?

As chairman and founder of GOL, I have led the firm through significant challenges and developments in immigration law. I have served as a steady hand during the COVID-19 pandemic and through traumatic regional events such as Hurricane Harvey. As a widely respected immigration law practitioner, I routinely practice before the Southern District of Texas federal court, as well before the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th, 9th, and 11th U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal, and the Supreme Court of the United States. My precedential case victories have quite literally changed the law for thousands of noncitizens seeking their piece of the American Dream. Under my leadership, GOL handles complex cases involving family-based immigration, removal defence, family-based immigration, litigation, and appeals.

GOL offers a variety of immigration solutions that remain unmatched by our competition due to our attorneys being fully immersed in all aspects of immigration law. Attorneys at the firm are required to involve themselves in volunteer educational and outreach efforts to better local and national immigrant communities.
As a result of these efforts, attorneys not only learn to address a variety of immigration issues with compassionate, client-cantered lawyering, but they also can keep up to date on some of the most complex and challenging legal issues practitioners see in the field. In addition to this total immersion, the problem-solvers at GOL also work in a collaborative atmosphere which ensures each case that comes through our doors benefits from the considerable expertise that our trained and dedicated attorneys can bring to the table through decades of experience representing clients in their immigration matters.

Please elaborate on a case study on how you have enabled clients to overcome hurdles.

One recent example of a case handled by our firm that has enabled our client—and many others—to overcome hurdles and attain desired outcomes is Rodriguez v. Garland, 15 F.4th 351 (5th Cir. 2021). In Rodriguez, the Fifth Circuit recognized for the first time that a noncitizen served with a deficient Notice to Appear, failing to contain the date and time of his/her proceedings before the immigration court, cannot be ordered removed for failing to go to their court hearing, based on a lack of statutory notice. This case is a huge win for noncitizens who were ordered removed for failing to appear for their proceedings because it now provides a pathway for such individuals to reopen their orders of removal and to regularize their immigration status.

What differentiates GOL from the other firms?

Primarily, what differentiates GOL from most other practitioners in the field of immigration law is our firm’s ability to handle even the most complex cases from the moment they walk through our doors, all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court. GOL has successfully represented clients before the nation’s highest court multiple times, resulting in changes to the law that have benefited countless immigrants throughout the United States. Indeed, many of our clients are actually referred to GOL by other practitioners in the field who are not as equipped to handle some of the serious legal challenges that the firm addresses on a daily basis. GOL is not only defined by our ability to provide compassion and empathy to every client we proudly represent; it is also characterized by the wide variety of tested legal assistance our experienced and diligent attorneys are able to offer clients who hire us from all across the U.S. and the world.

What does the future hold for GOL?

Beyond representing clients in courts throughout the nation, GOL also makes community engagement and empowerment a top priority. Our firm proudly serves as the official immigration adviser to the Harris County Public Defender’s Office, where we assist advocates in ensuring that their legal advice will not jeopardize clients’ immigration status. Additionally, the firm routinely engages in community outreach at schools, informational fairs, and public service events where we provide free legal consultations and help appraise immigrants of their rights and options. We also conduct legislative outreach to elected officials at the state and federal levels so that we can operate to serve as a voice for many of our clients who are routinely denied the opportunity to speak out for themselves and their communities.

At GOL, we believe the future is promising for our firm when it is equally promising for the clients we serve. Presently, our firm has taken advantage of recent changes enacted by the current administration to zealously advocate for fair and just results for our many clients. The successes we have earned from our tested advocacy have enabled our firm to maintain its stature throughout the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

GOL recently moved its headquarters from a leased office space to a much larger location owned and operated by the firm, which permits us to provide even more exceptional services to our customers. We have also entered into a partnership with a personal injury law firm to provide our clients with exceptional services in this key area of law, and we are currently considering expanding into other areas of law, such as family and criminal law.