EB-5 Attorney Relates to Clients on a Meaningful Level

Published on 10/22/2014

Transcription:

Chris Chan, NBC News: Welcome to Inside Law. We’re talking immigration and the EB-5 visa. And joining us to tell a little bit more about that is Vaughn de Kirby. He’s an attorney with over 30 years of experience in practice. Vaughn, tell us a little bit about your firm and the services that you offer.

Vaughn de Kirby: Certainly. Well I mean, personally I can tell you a little bit about myself. I’m married 43 years. My wife and I Christine, we have 3 children. My oldest son is a PhD candidate at Berkley. My daughter is a performer and trainer of aerialists. And my youngest son, who we’ll talk about later, is living in Beijing, and has lived in Beijing, and loves Beijing, and has lived there for over 2 years. My firm practices primarily investment immigration. This is where a foreign national that wishes to immigrate to the United States makes a qualifying investment in a United States enterprise that’s called EB-5, and by making that EB-5 investment they are able to secure a green card for themselves and their children. We practice in that area and we are very, very specific. I have a team of attorneys and staff that basically work primarily at this time with people in the mainland and with the People’s Republic of China, and we have shaped our office totally for that purpose. We, all of my staff is bilingual. We have our office open from 12, noon, until 8:30 at night Sunday through Friday, which allows us to work real time with our clients in China from about, until about 12 noon everyday because Sunday in the United States is Monday in China. So we adapt to that because it’s my goal to provide the most meaningful communication possible with my clients.

Chan: Right, so your offices are based in San Francisco, but you also spend a lot of time in China as well.

De Kirby: I spend about three months a year in China. I travel there about every six to eight weeks and I usually stay from two to three weeks each visit. I’m very lucky. I love my work. I travel throughout China almost all of the major cities visiting clients and helping agents that are helping their clients.

Chan: Now, Vaughn, you know what it’s like to have a child live overseas and experience a very different culture, right?

De Kirby: I sit across from parents all the time. A lot of our clients are parents with university students that are coming to the United States to study, and I feel like in the last two years I’ve really learned a lot about how they feel ‘cause I remember vividly the day that my son Wes made the decision that he wanted to live in Beijing. He was going to master Mandarin and learn that culture. And I really understand both the feeling as a parent when I had to leave my son that day in a country very far away from his home and also the value and the changes and the knowledge that he has learned as a result of learning a language, and a culture, and how a different country thinks and works. It’s been an amazing growth experience for him and for me experiencing what’s happening to him through him.

Chan: And the world has become a very, smaller place with the advent of technology. Is that right?

De Kirby: Oh, the communication is amazing! I mean there are so many ways to communicate. They have “WeChat” in China, I think you and I discussed before we were on the air. I communicate with my son every day via WeChat and email. And, it’s 12 hours. And in 12 hours I’m in Beijing having dinner with my son.