Dawn Lurie

Dawn M. Lurie is senior counsel in the Immigration Practice Group of Seyfarth Shaw LLP’s Washington, D.C. office. Dawn advises on corporate immigration issues involving the recruitment, hiring, transfer, and retention of personnel worldwide. She is recognized in the legal community as a forward thinking immigration compliance authority and EB-5 investment strategist. She has more than 25 years of experience providing assistance with global and U.S. immigration processes.

Ms. Lurie is considered a trusted partner to corporate clients and is relied on for her ability to spot impending government enforcement trends. Her ability to balance business necessity with regulatory reality is also highly valued. When advising clients, Ms. Lurie presents creative, yet compliant, solutions and identifies issues long before they become problematic. Dawn’s proudest professional achievement is her ongoing work with young women in the legal field. She has served as a mentor and sponsor, and remains active in women’s workplace initiatives.

Her practice includes a range of cases, from routine to the most complex, involving:

• EB-5 Foreign Investment including representation of regional centers, investors, project developers, broker dealer, and providing targeted due diligence services and development of best practices protocols.
• Immigration Compliance including Form I-9, E-Verify, SEVP/SEVIS foreign student related matters and  immigration issues related to mergers and acquisitions, reductions in force, and business restructurings.
• Visa Processing  including immigrant and non-immigrant visas, naturalization, residency and security issues.

Ms. Lurie has represented foreign individuals through the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program since the early 1990s. She has since expanded her practice to include EB-5 compliance work and regional center representation.

Her experience has evolved over the last two decades as the EB-5 program progressed from an obscure means of obtaining U.S. residency, to a viable mechanism of funding a significant portion of the capital stack for large-scale projects and infrastructure building across industries. Ms. Lurie is particularly interested in EB-5 project and regional center compliance, which she believes has been overlooked with the surge of growth in the program.

Her team focuses on providing private equity funding strategies to developers interested in establishing regional centers and implementing projects. Ms. Lurie’s Form I-9 and E-Verify experience is nationally recognized. She develops and manages nationwide I-9 compliance training and assists clients during immigration-related government  audits or internal reviews.

Ms. Lurie also assists federal government contractors in meeting the FAR mandatory E-Verify compliance rules and flow-down clause. She’s published immigration articles on the immigration consequences of M&A and other corporate reorganizations as well as the implications of downsizings, reductions in force, and salary level/ job duty changes.

Ms. Lurie represents companies before Immigration and Customs Enforcement and defends those facing government investigations including ones initiated by the Department of Labor or Department of State. Her experience also includes representing colleges, universities and foreign students with SEVIS/SEVP related issues as well as with routine compliance planning. Ms. Lurie is consistently able to negotiate favorable settlements and resolve even the most adversarial of matters because of her solution oriented approach and her ability to work cohesively with government agencies.

Education:

• J.D., American University, Washington College of Law (1990)
• B.A., Pennsylvania State University (1987)