Henley, Julianne

Ms. Helbush was Senior Partner at Simmons & Ungar LLP from 1991 through 2007. She is now Of Counsel to the firm. She is a California Certified Specialist in Immigration & Nationality Law and served on the State Bar Commission on Specialization for Immigration & Nationality Law. Ms. Helbush was Chair of the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild. She previously taught Immigration Law at Golden Gate University School of Law in San Francisco. She was the recipient of the 1996 Phillip Burton Immigration and Civil Rights Award. Ms. Helbush currently serves as a Mentor for the American Immigration Lawyers Association on nonimmigrant visa issues.

In her Of Counsel role, Ms. Helbush focuses on assisting employers to develop immigration compliance programs and in-house systems and expertise for immigration benefits applications processing --- H-1B, L-1 and permanent residence. She is available for internal compliance and operations audits and consultation about specific issues involved in hiring and terminating foreign nationals, issues involved in mergers and acquisitions and other complicated strategic and compliance issues. Ms. Helbush has more than 20 years experience representing employers with a significant workforce in India, especially information technology services companies utilizing a global delivery model.

Ms. Helbush also works with Simmons & Ungar attorneys on selected cases in other areas of her interests and expertise --- family-based petitions, Violence against Women Act (VAWA) applications and asylum applications. She often is consulted by community groups and other lawyers on issues relating to asylum, marriage and the immigration consequences of criminal convictions. She has participated in INS (now USCIS) training for the Asylum Officer corps and has led many training sessions for pro bono attorneys representing asylum applicants. Ms. Helbush has been active with the National Network for Battered Immigrant Women and worked with this organization to provide input during the drafting of the initial VAWA immigration provisions. She acted as the Editor for Immigration Law & the Family.