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In this episode of Lawyer Business Advantage, I have a conversation with Sophie Alcorn, Alcorn Immigration Law‘s founding attorney. Sophie shares her powerful story as a single mom, building a nationwide immigration practice from the ground up. Along the way, you’ll learn the business development tactics that she used to put herself on the national stage. Sophie’s inspiring story is coming up right now on Lawyer Business Advantage.
Alay Yajnik: [00:00:40] Welcome to Lawyer Business Advantage, your source for biz dev tips, wisdom and inspiration. I’m your host, Alay Yajnik. We’re unleashing your inner rainmaker in three, two, one….
Alay Yajnik: [00:00:55] It’s my pleasure to welcome Sophie Alcorn to the show. Sophie Alcorn is the founding attorney of Alcorn Immigration Law and is an immigration and nationality law specialist certified by the state bar of California’s Board of Legal Specialization. She is the leading immigration attorney in all of Santa Clara County, that includes Silicon Valley, with this designation. Sophie founded Alcorn Immigration Law in Mountain View, California in 2015. Since then, Sophie has been quoted in publications around the globe, including The New York Times, The Guardian, Financial Times, and The Atlantic. She is a regular speaker at the Global Tech Crunch conferences and has been a sought after speaker on immigration for numerous other conferences and events. She advises several nonprofits and Silicon Valley startups, including Global EIR, Project Ellis and Avid Innovations. The American Institute of Legal Counsel has named Sophie Alcorn one of the 10 Best Immigration Lawyers in California in 2019 and her firm, Alcorn Immigration Law, won the Women Business Enterprise Excellence and Growth Award in 2019 to be one of the fastest growing certified women-owned companies in the Pacific region of the United States. Sophie is also the host of the podcast Immigration Law for Tech Startups, which is available wherever you get your podcast. So tune in if you’d like to learn about green visas and green cards in Silicon Valley. Sophie, welcome to the show. So happy to have you with us.
Sophie Alcorn: [00:02:26] Thank you so much, Alay. It is great to be here. I’m so excited to see everything that you’re working on and to be a part of this podcast. Thank you.
Alay Yajnik: [00:02:37] My pleasure. You know, every time we talk, your bio gets longer and longer. So congratulations on your success.
Sophie Alcorn: [00:02:46] Thank you. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much.
Alay Yajnik: [00:02:49] You and I have talked quite a bit and obviously I’m familiar with your story, but our listeners may not be familiar with your story. And it’s so compelling. I find it very inspiring. I would love to hear if you could share with us what drove you to start Alcorn Immigration Law.
Sophie Alcorn: [00:03:04] Okay. All right. Thank you. Well, about four and a half years ago, I was a stay at home mom to a one year old and a four year old. I had taken a break from my career as an immigration lawyer and moved to the Bay Area with my ex-husband, where I’d previously grown up and practiced in Southern California and with my dad. So he was an immigration lawyer as well. And I was really struggling doing the mommy thing full time. It’s a hard job that’s been harder than just starting my law firm and growing something for me. Yeah. So I have so much respect for people who do that and and admiration for people who do that and enjoy it. And I love my kids. They’re great. But I’m not cut out to be a full time stay at home mom.
Sophie Alcorn: [00:04:09] And so I was starting to get the first inklings of that about five or six years ago and…I lost my dad early due to an accident. I got this middle of the night phone call that he had passed and it was something none of us were ready for. And he had ended up making other arrangements for his law firm. And here I was in Silicon Valley as the mom of these two little kids. And eventually I realized I was looking at getting a divorce and I needed to figure out a way to take care of myself and my kids and stay in Silicon Valley.
Sophie Alcorn: [00:04:56] And, you know, life is hard sometimes. We all have these moments of transition. These turning points that shape us and force us to make decisions that we wouldn’t otherwise be willing to make. And so I definitely found myself in that position. And there were some really dark and lonely times where I didn’t know if things were going to be OK. But in those moments, I realized that at least I could make a difference in somebody else’s life by starting my law practice again. And so I did cases out of my kitchen, holding my kids, working the middle of the night, trying to mix baby food and write legal briefs at the same time. And that’s how it started. And I didn’t really intend to have this international brand, although it’s fun and I love it. But back then, I was thinking, “Oh, do I spend two hundred dollars on a portable printer so that I can go to the Starbucks and print out some documents for my clients when I’m meeting them there to sign things?”
Sophie Alcorn: [00:06:05] And I just made a commitment early on that I was going to treat my clients with integrity and compassion and honesty and being clear and communicative and trying to make this experience about them. And that really paid off. And so one thing led to another and the demand quickly, quickly grew. And as I was going through my divorce and I decided to grow this law firm. So it’s been really exciting.
Alay Yajnik: [00:06:43] And what was the realization for you? At some point realized you had a stable firm. The firm was doing well. You probably had more demand that you had capacity and maybe you had to make a choice of do you grow this thing or do you stay small? Can you tell me a little bit about that point time…what your thought process was?
Sophie Alcorn: [00:07:03] So immigration law is interesting because it’s very complicated legally. And a lot of the work is very rote and routine. So I’ve done a lot to learn about other law firms and how law firm business models work and how mine could work. And I get the sense that in like a business corporate law environment, there could be a couple of attorneys to one paralegal. But the ratio is completely different in immigration law. And so I had to make a choice really early on because I was just getting super frustrated, filling out forms and compiling packages of documents.
Sophie Alcorn: [00:07:50] And I love counseling. I love legal research. I love figuring out the arguments. But a lot of the work is more routine. And I really wanted to spend my time helping people and making money because….
Sophie Alcorn: [00:08:07] And so I actually hit the point of burning out on some of the admin work before I was really financially in the clear for starting this firm. I just knew that this was the best opportunity I had going for me. And in order to make it work, I definitely required a team. So it was one of the assumptions that I had to build into my model early on in order to make it work.
Alay Yajnik: [00:08:37] You know, what you’ve done is pretty amazing as a single mom to be able to work a law firm and launch it and be successful. Pretty awesome. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask you, you know, how did you balance it? Growing the firm with with managing your kids?
Sophie Alcorn: [00:08:57] There’s no balance. That’s a myth. That’s pretend. It’s a constant juggling act. And I will say the one thing that’s gotten easier as we’ve grown, because now we have 18 W2 employees across the United States, plus contractors. So, I’m not working less.
Sophie Alcorn: [00:09:27] And I was thinking about applying to jobs in San Francisco to work for other people’s immigration law firms, and I remember writing the cover letters and that said something like, “I’m Sophie. I will help you bring in clients. I like social media marketing, which I did for my at home bread baking business temporarily. And I really like going to events and meeting people. So please hire me for a part time job so I can help you get a lot of business.” And then when I never even sent the cover letter. I read the thing and I said, “Well, this doesn’t make sense.” Why am I going to commute, you know, two hours each day to work for somebody else, to bring in clients for them when they’re probably just going to want me to do the forms and the drafting, but I actually want to get out there and meet people and be involved in the community and do public speaking and get out there.” So. So there was that.
Sophie Alcorn: [00:10:27] But there is no balance. It’s just that the more I follow my heart, the more my work becomes play. And so when the kids are saying, “Mommy, why do we have to go to school?” And I’m saying, “It’s the law. Get dressed. Go. You can’t miss school.” And we were joking about it. And then the next day, we made this giant checklist on a whiteboard so that they would get their socks and shoes on on time. And I put us one of the things that they had to do is have fun and play before school started. And they said, “Look, mommy, you haven’t had fun and played yet, so we can’t leave yet.” I said, “OK, but that’s what I’m going to do. I get to go play at work all day.” That’s the secret. People think that you have to go to work at work, but I go to work to play. And so it’s that, in doing the really scary thing of following my heart and not knowing what the outcome was going to look like, with each step forward things have gotten more fun and more in the flow. And so it doesn’t feel like that constant juggling of too many tasks that I’m not happy doing all the time. Now it’s, “Oh, which awesome thing do I get to focus my energy and attention on?” And it’s become inspiring. And then that’s a really great positive feedback loop.
Alay Yajnik: [00:11:59] That’s awesome. I’m so glad you say that, because you know that there are not a lot of attorneys and not a lot of law firm owners that have worked to get into that position. So it’s really awesome what you’ve done with the firm.
Sophie Alcorn: [00:12:10] Thanks.
Alay Yajnik: [00:12:10] And now you’ve grown it nationally and the firm’s continues to grow. There are other attorneys that have tried to do what you do, but they haven’t been successful. And so one thing my listeners would really benefit from, I think, is just could you expound a little bit on what has been your approach to growing your firm?
Sophie Alcorn: [00:12:33] Sure. So. I see everybody as a potential mentor and. It doesn’t have to be a formal relationship. It doesn’t have to be somebody with more technical experience than me. When I’m out – so one of the reasons I love this particular niche of immigration law in Silicon Valley is that when I’m out networking and meeting people, I’m talking to startup founders from around the world and they’re investors and advisors. So being in this network is super exciting because I get to have 10 interesting conversations every day learning about how different business models work and software as a service and artificial intelligence and what is the future of business going to look like. So I really get curious and inspired about that. I remember at the beginning crying in the middle of the night, calling my mom. And she does HR in Southern California and just saying, “Where’s the franchise? I just want to buy the law firm in the box. Why doesn’t this exist? How do I know if I’m doing it right?” You could find an offer letter online, but where’s the corporate…how do you get people to work for you and be happy and know what they’re supposed to do? And it’s taken a lot of a lot of diligence, time, effort, really a lot of investing into ongoing behaviors that lead to the growth of the business. Not fly by night strategies to try to quickly bring in cases to make payroll right before the end of the month or something like that. And so I probably could have taken more profit out sooner. But this is a very long term vision for me. And it really matters to me that I create a great work environment based on our firm’s core values of integrity, compassion, creativity and rigor. That we have the right seats on the bus and the right people are in the right seats. That we build our systems, procedures, templates, questionnaires. That we use technology to automate things. And that we’re doing everything with our client in mind: “Will this make it easy for them? Will they understand this?” Because at the end of the day, they’re suffering because there’s something blocking them from being able to get what they want and need. And so we’re supposed to make that easier for them. That’s why they pay us…so constantly working to refine the business. And it’s not always easy. I’ve made a lot of a lot of mistakes along the way. Some of them were expensive mistakes, but that’s how you learn. So I see everything as a learning opportunity.
Sophie Alcorn: [00:16:02] And the other metaphor that I like is from Michelangelo, the Renaissance sculptor, who said something about how, people would say, “Wow, how do you create such great sculptures?” And he basically said that he uses his chisel to reveal the form that’s already within the rock. It’s just hidden. And so that’s what I like to keep in mind about this firm that there is this ideal, amazing, optimum, fantastic, well functioning, happy law firm that’s just it’s there and it’s waiting for us. And we’re just revealing it one little step at a time.
Alay Yajnik: [00:16:49] That’s fantastic. It’s very similar to what I do with a lot of my clients, which is we figure out what their Perfect Practice is.
Sophie Alcorn: [00:16:56] There you go.
Alay Yajnik: [00:16:57] Once we understand that then everything we do leads us closer to that.
Sophie Alcorn: [00:17:02] Right. A lot of my friends want to ask me how I did this or for me to help them. But that’s exactly right. And I’m so glad you start there because my ideal firm is so different than other people.
Sophie Alcorn: [00:17:17] And there’s other moms of the same age kids and a similar practice background, and maybe the best thing for them is to spend 20 hours a week on client work and seven hours a week on admin and nothing else, right? And so the firm that can fulfill those needs is completely different than what I’m building and what works for me.
Alay Yajnik: [00:17:45] That’s what’s ironic. You think, “Okay, well I’m going to build a law firm. Well, other people have built law firms and other people built immigration firms. Shouldn’t that blueprint just be out there that I can just grab and replicate? Why do I have to waste, sorry not waste, “invest” thousands of hours and tens of thousands of dollars trying to figure all this stuff out?” But the solutions that have worked for other people don’t always work for you. Everyone’s got to find their own path.
Sophie Alcorn: [00:18:15] And the clientele is so different. The type of firm that you build to help Ethiopian refugees is totally different than the type of firm that helps university researchers. Which is totally different than my type of firm, which is Silicon Valley technology professionals and entrepreneurs. And so you really have to hone in on whose problem are you trying to solve and then how will you make that work for your life? And what you come up with is totally different.
Alay Yajnik: [00:18:48] Yeah, and the constraints are different, too. Some people are constrained on capital. Some people are constrained on time, whether people and or juggling like you are, you know.
Sophie Alcorn: [00:18:58] Oh, well, I will also throw this out there in case it helps anybody who’s listening. I started my firm with nothing. We didn’t invest anything into it. I just got about eight thousand dollars worth of casework that I did in a two week period. And that was my seed capital and there was one month that was really scary. I just filed – the divorce had just been filed and I was a mess. I didn’t know how I was going to make payroll. And I had received thirteen thousand dollars from my dad’s life insurance after he passed. So that was my disposable cash. And I – a lot of people would call this very foolish, but I believed in myself so much and what I was building that I took that thirteen thousand dollars, invested into my business, and used that to be able to pay my employees just so I could keep going that month. So I didn’t start with much but…Determination.
Alay Yajnik: [00:20:10] It’s interesting because you’re literally across the freeway from Google and you’re five minutes away from Google headquarters.
Sophie Alcorn: [00:20:14] Yeah.
Alay Yajnik: [00:20:14] And yet your business, you really bootstrapped your way, you know. You started with nothing. You just built it up. There was no big injection of venture capital or anything.
Sophie Alcorn: [00:20:25] Oh, I know. And people say to me, “Oh, I want to invest in your business.”
Sophie Alcorn: [00:20:30] “Well, are you a lawyer?”
Sophie Alcorn: [00:20:31] “No.”
Sophie Alcorn: [00:20:31] “Well, sorry, I can’t take your money.” But I’ve thought about that quite a bit. Just because of this ecosystem about the model of creating a legal technology company that’s somehow connected. But then, like I said, you know, there’s this tech law firm that got seventy five million dollars of funding a couple of years ago in San Francisco, and they just announced that they’re laying off all of their hundred attorneys. So I’m not going to be optimizing for technology versus law. I’m just optimizing for erasing borders for my core clientele, which is technology professionals. And so it could be one day that in order to meet their needs, we have to provide a totally different set of non-legal services. So I don’t know how technology will evolve or what that would look like. But but I’m open to it because I’ve learned to stop thinking like a lawyer and start thinking like a business person!
Alay Yajnik: [00:21:40] I know! Which your marketing approach has been has been really well, I’ll just say it’s significantly different than that of many attorneys. And I think a lot of that may have driven your success in the marketing arena. If your marketing approach is significantly different, you can get significantly different results. And so how would you describe your philosophy when it comes to marketing?
Sophie Alcorn: [00:22:10] I feel flattered to be asked that question. As you were phrasing it I was just thinking that I’m like a “Type A” teacher’s pet who always tried to get the awards in high school so I could go to a good college. So I kind of feel like I’ve just extended that into my practice. So, whenever there’s an opportunity to be – when some organization is calling for nominations, I will actually ask my friends to nominate me and support me and help me. And I will approach people and offer to do speaking gigs for them. I’ve hosted my own meetup group. We have the podcast. It’s been a lot of testing of different things. And I haven’t had the resources really to do huge controlled A/B testing on different marketing techniques, but I can say that for my clientele what’s working is positioning myself as a thought leader in the immigration space for tech immigration. And so, I mean that’s the thing: I just I love the marketing piece. It is so fun for me to go give talks. I used to be completely paralyzed and frightened and scared, but I just had to keep doing it. And I saw that it was bringing me leads. So it was worth it to get over my fears. And I’ve invested in speaker coaching and writing coaching and lots of different things I’ve had. I’ve had blog writers support me. So it’s definitely not something I try to do all by myself. It’sa big part of our firm and we’re getting more sophisticated with it as time goes on.
Alay Yajnik: [00:24:11] There’s a lot of lessons in there. Someone who is maybe on the outside looking in probably thinks, “Oh, this comes easily to Sophie and she’s such a natural, she’s just super talented.” And all that may be true, but it’s important to know that you were uncomfortable when you first started into this.
Sophie Alcorn: [00:24:28] I was so uncomfortable! I thought the biggest thing between me and practicing law was that I was fat after having babies and none of my suits fit me. And I was too scared to get the box of suits out of the attic and even try them on because I had so little self-confidence that I didn’t want to realize how much weight I had gained having kids. Ridiculous! A box of suits was in between me practicing again. No! I have so much empathy because I’ve been through it, and these things were not easy for me at first. And it was really, really scary.
Sophie Alcorn: [00:25:12] I knew I could always figure out the law. But then when I was busy doing the cases, there was nobody to bring in money. So then it would be, “Oh, crap, how am I going to get the next bit of money?” And it was this constant alternation and I really just – if I had – so no regrets. I’m so grateful for every challenge that’s happened to me in my life because I really love where I am and I’m so appreciative of all of these amazing things, experiences and opportunities that I’ve been able to have. That being said, moving forward, if it could take things that are easier to deal with than: divorce, and my father’s unexpected passing, and having PTSD (for me two things that I also had to deal with). If it could take less things like that to completely turn my life upside down so that I’m more willing to be flexible and learn and grow, even when I’m not in a crisis position, I would love that moving forward.
Alay Yajnik: [00:26:26] Why does all this drama and hardship and stress need to be involved??
Sophie Alcorn: [00:26:33] Exactly. That’s the thing, though. But I was so closed off from who I was and what I wanted that it was really hard to “follow my heart.” People would say that and I would roll my eyes and I would just be really jealous that there were optimists in the world who seemed to have good things going for them. But I really just didn’t have a choice. So I had to keep going. And now that I know which direction I’m going in, it’s easier to pay attention to my emotions and my heart and check in with my gut about is this a good opportunity? Is this worth learning about? Is this worth exploring or is it taking us in a direction that isn’t right? And I didn’t know what that direction was for so long because it was scary to commit. It was scary to say no to certain case types, to focus on others because, you know, what was I going to do to cash flow in the short term?
Sophie Alcorn: [00:27:35] So I just have so much empathy for anybody who is is willing to think about this or to consider it, because it takes a lot of courage. And that’s really powerful and so I just want your listeners to know that if they’re thinking about this, if they’re scared by it: you’re not alone. You can figure it out. There are so many resources. And the most important thing, so that you are willing to stick with it, is that you’re following your heart. So if this is not what your heart is saying, it might not work out. But if it’s something you really want, then there’s nothing that can actually stand in your way.
Alay Yajnik: [00:28:26] I agree. It’s just business development, after all.
Sophie Alcorn: [00:28:29] Yeah. Right. There’s people whose job this is.
Alay Yajnik: [00:28:34] Everyone can do business development. I fully believe that there’s a rainmaker inside all of us. And, Sohpie, your style is going to be very different from mine. but both can be very effective.
Sophie Alcorn: [00:28:45] Exactly.
Alay Yajnik: [00:28:45] And so I love that you said that to our listeners. Thanks for that. And there’s a lot of attorneys who are listening who are probably just getting into business development or who are looking to really accelerate the results in that area and really start taking it seriously, maybe for the first time and focusing on it. What advice would you give to them?
Sophie Alcorn: [00:29:06] Yeah, I’ve invested a lot in training my team and myself on sales and how to do, you know, high value professional services sales. I thought “sales” was a dirty word. I was so embarrassed that I had to take money for my services, that I couldn’t just do everything pro bono for all the people who needed it. So it took a lot for me to get over that and to believe in myself and set flat fee prices that actually reflected the time and labor involved and also reflected the value of the outcome to my clients. That was really scary, just committing to the fact that I’m worth it and what I’m creating is worth it. But it’s constant refinement. And I have a process that I use in different consultations and sales conversations with people. And it just fundamentally boils down to: “Where are you now? What’s holding you back? Where do you want to be? What are the blockers and how can we support you to move forward?” So it’s really not about, “I’m Sophie Alcorn and this is great. And here’s how an H-1B works. And here’s the steps.” Nobody cares. They don’t want to know. They’re just freaking out that they can’t get their employee here or they can’t leave the big tech company to start their own startup, even though somebody is dangling millions of dollars in their face but their visa is tied to their employer. So that’s the human element. And I don’t care what your type of law is. It all boils down to: there’s a human need at the base of this. And so in my experience, if you have your rainmaking sales conversations tied in to that, they will be a lot more effective because you’re actually providing value to people that they can appreciate.
Alay Yajnik: [00:31:15] There’s a phrase that really just jumped into my mind: one of the things when I talk about business development. Sorry, let me get this right: “No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care.” Right. With demonstrating that caring component and then everything else flows from there.
Sophie Alcorn: [00:31:38] Exactly. Exactly. People want to be seen, known, heard, felt. And this is why we’re also counselors at law. There’s really this human compassion piece that’s so important. So that’s a beautiful saying, Alay.
Alay Yajnik: [00:32:00] Well I wish I came up with it! You actually live this philosophy quite a bit. So tell us a little bit about “Dear Sophie,” which is your advice.
Sophie Alcorn: [00:32:09] Yes, thank you. So I write for the online technology newspaper TechCrunch, which is very big in the startup founder community. Also with investors and in different startup ecosystems, not just in Silicon Valley, but also all around the world. And we recently launched. It is now a weekly advice column. It’s called “Dear Sophie.” And I still get this embarrassed grin about the whole thing, because it’s just this idea that came to me in the shower one morning when I was thinking, “Oh my God, wouldn’t it be so hilarious if I could pull off writing a Dear Abby style advice column? Like the dating thing in the newspapers in the nineties, but transform it into immigration advice for startups and their employees?” And I had already been working with TechCrunch over the last year and became one of their verified experts because I asked friends to recommend me. And that’s the whole thing that started this relationship. And then from there, got to know the editorial team and started speaking at their events. And so this was a natural progression. And it’s been really fun. And now apparently there’s tens of thousands of people around the world who read these articles. My friend was at a party (I’m in San Francisco) in L.A. last weekend. And she said, “Oh my God, you live in San Francisco!” to this guy, “My friend Sophie is an immigration lawyer up there.” He’s like, “Oh, Sophie Alcorn from TechCrunch? I read all of her stuff!” And it’s really funny because I just cannot express enough about the contrast from those early baby days when I was so fat and so exhausted and felt like I had no professional identity: “I’m not even a lawyer. Nobody is going to trust me. Nobody will ever believe that I’m a lawyer.” And it was just such a low point. So you know, it can be done because – so now it just cracks me up. It’s fun.
Alay Yajnik: [00:34:46] That’s awesome. And I’ve read some of the entries there, and it’s pretty amazing. You get inquiries from all around the world.
Sophie Alcorn: [00:34:52] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we do. We do.
Sophie Alcorn: [00:34:58] Yeah. And that was another branding decision I had or insight and decision that I that I had, which is so you know, politics is a big part of immigration because it’s federal, it’s in the news a lot. And so one of my early exposures in the PR space was after the most recent presidential election, I went on to a website called Periscope, I think, that was doing live video posting. And I had a three minute video about the Muslim ban. And I was almost crying. And I was like so stressed out and shaking, running my hands over my hair. And I was really sad and I just felt really crazy. And that video actually got seventeen thousand views.
Sophie Alcorn: [00:35:55] I’ve fought hard about the approach that I want to take and my voice that I’m using in the articles I write and the speeches that I give, and I’ve decided that there’s enough fear mongering in my area of the world with this field of law and that I don’t want to use scare tactics or frighten people into hiring us. And I’ve decided that I – sometimes I worry that the voice I write in is almost too Pollyanna-ish with exclamation points and stuff. But I want to be a counterpoint in all of this rhetoric that says, “Follow your heart. If this is your goal, you can find a way. Let’s be strategic. You’ve got this.” Because I want people to believe in themselves. And so, different marketing vendors who I work with don’t necessarily get that at first because it’s different than a lot of commonly used techniques. But it’s really important to me. So that is something I definitely want to continue.
Alay Yajnik: [00:37:07] Yeah, you’re being authentic about that and you’re being intentional about it, so that’s that’s commendable in the fact that not a lot of other people are doing it. It’s only good thing, right? It’s how you stand out.
Sophie Alcorn: [00:37:20] Yeah. And this is a business development podcast. So, look, I think it sells. I think happiness and inspiration sell. And so there you go. There’s another reason to do it also.
Alay Yajnik: [00:37:32] It certainly feels a lot better, right?
Sophie Alcorn: [00:37:35] Yeah! I mean, that’s what I want.
Alay Yajnik: [00:37:35] Exactly.
Sophie Alcorn: [00:37:35] Yeah. You’ve got a lot of irons in the fire. You’ve go your podcasts, the Dear Sophie column, all the other business developments you do, all the speaking you do. What excites you about Alcorn Immigration Law as you head forward?
Sophie Alcorn: [00:37:51] I’m writing a book. I’m writing three books, and I’m getting an agent for the first book, which is going to be immigration law for tech startups. So, that’s a new experience. I’ve never been in that world before. And we’re growing a lot with the firm. We’re filling six positions this quarter. So I’m really excited because now that we have our core values and we have a great operations team our hiring process is getting better and better and we’re attracting really great members to be a part of our team. So it’s exciting to be working with amazing people. I love traveling around the world and meeting new people.
Sophie Alcorn: [00:38:47] And I think I just got invited to potentially give a TEDx Talk so that’s my other life goal. It’s really fun. It’s really fun.
Alay Yajnik: [00:39:03] That’s great.
Sophie Alcorn: [00:39:04] Thank you.
Alay Yajnik: [00:39:06] Well, Sophie, thank you so much for being on the show. Always a delight to speak with you and to hear all the growth and success and authenticity that you bring. Thank you so much.
Sophie Alcorn: [00:39:16] Thank you so much, Alay. It’s always great talking with you. And thank you for the compassion that you bring to dialogues and how you’re always so supportive. So it’s great to be here. Thank you so much.
Alay Yajnik: [00:39:31] My pleasure. And that’s Sophie Alcorn, founding attorney of Alcorn Immigration Law. Sophie is the host of the podcast Immigration Law for Tech Startups, which is available wherever you get your podcast. And maybe where you got this one. So tune into her podcast if you’d like to learn about visas and green cards and Silicon Valley. Sophie, thank you again. A pleasure.
Sophie Alcorn: [00:39:51] Thank you so much.
Alay Yajnik: [00:39:53] And that’s a wrap! To get more episodes, webinars and free stuff. Visit lawyerbusinessadvantage.com. My name is Alay Yajnik. Thank you for listening. And remember, there is a rainmaker inside everyone, including you.