The law school Hannu Huikuri attended likes to call itself the northernmost in the world. Whether or not that claim holds up to scrutiny, it set the stage for a career defined by crossing borders, both literally and professionally.

Today, Huikuri runs his own immigration law practice out of Century City, Los Angeles, helping European companies and startups, Nordic entrepreneurs, and individuals of extraordinary ability navigate the complexities of U.S. business immigration. But the road from northern Finland to Beverly Hills was anything but a straight line.

How  Government Employment Launched an Immigration Law Career

Huikuri did not set out to become an immigration attorney. He finished law school in Finland and, like most new graduates, started looking for his first real job. In 2015, Europe was grappling with a surge of asylum seekers arriving from conflict zones in the Middle East. The Finnish Immigration Service needed officers who could adjudicate asylum applications and conduct interviews. For a freshly minted attorney, it was a compelling entry point.

"It wasn't like I chose immigration law in law school or anything like that," Huikuri says. "It was more of a, here's a good opportunity to get my feet wet in the legal world."

He spent the next few years immersed in immigration from the government side, adjudicating asylum claims and representing the Finnish government in appeals on both asylum and residence permit cases. It was intensive, complex work, and it gave him a perspective from behind the adjudicator's desk.

Rebuilding From Scratch

In 2017, he moved to Los Angeles, and what came next required a healthy dose of humility. Despite his years of legal experience in Finland, Huikuri was not licensed to practice law in the United States. He started over as a paralegal at boutique immigration law firms in LA, learning the mechanics of U.S. business immigration from the ground up.

"That was a complete shift for me," he recalls. It was also the period that sharpened his focus. Working on E-2 investor visas and EB-5 cases introduced him to the world of business immigration, and he knew he had found his lane.

After building that foundation, Huikuri returned to Finland and joined KPMG, one of the Big Four consulting firms. There, he managed the U.S. immigration experience for Finnish corporate clients, serving as the bridge between European companies and KPMG's American legal team. It was a role that blended his dual expertise with European cultural fluency and a working knowledge of U.S. immigration processes.

But the pull of America was strong. In 2021, he made the permanent move back to the U.S. and soon after joined Fragomen, one of the largest immigration law firms in the world.

At Fragomen, Huikuri worked as an associate attorney and quickly noticed something. European clients, drawn by the ease of working with someone from a shared cultural background and language, kept seeking him out. Nordic  companies expanding into the U.S. wanted an attorney who understood not just the legal requirements but the way business is done in the Nordics.

"It's easier for clients to work with someone who is from the same sort of cultural context as they are," he explains. The demand was real, and in 2023, Huikuri made the leap to start his own law firm

The early days were exactly as challenging as he expected. "It's a lonely business, I would say, in a way," he admits. Without the built-in support network of a large firm, the first months meant doing everything alone: client intake, drafting, filing, marketing.

But he offers a reassuring message to anyone considering the same path: "It's going to be okay. There's plenty of work to go around." What he learned was that the business takes time to ramp up, but once it does, the freedom to run things his way made the leap worthwhile.

Networking and Collaboration

For Huikuri, the early client pipeline did not come from expensive Google Ad campaigns. It came from showing up.

He attended networking events organized by consulates and chambers of commerce from various countries based in Los Angeles. For an attorney serving Nordic and European clients, these gatherings were a natural fit. He also partnered with other law firms that had established client pipelines, sharing the marketing burden and reducing the financial risk that comes with starting from scratch.

"Each client that you get in the beginning, they are the best marketing," he says. "Referrals from your current existing clients. So you've got to make sure you put 150% of your effort into the first ones, and that's going to be very fruitful in the end."

E-2 Investor Visa Myths

The E-2 investor visa remains Huikuri's favorite category. He has worked with it since his earliest days in U.S. immigration law, and if there is one thing he wants prospective applicants to understand, it is that you probably do not need as much money as you think.

"The biggest misconception that foreign applicants have is that you have to have a million dollars to invest," he says. Unlike the EB-5, which has specific minimum investment thresholds, the E-2 has no fixed dollar amount. The required investment is relative to the type of business being launched.

Opening a car manufacturing operation? Naturally, that requires millions. But a consulting firm or a specialized service business? The investment threshold drops considerably. Huikuri spends a significant portion of his consultations simply correcting this misunderstanding, helping potential investors see that the E-2 may be more accessible than they feared.

The other common hesitation is the requirement to commit before applying. E-2 applicants must get their business up and running, making real investments and real commitments, before they file their visa petition. Huikuri sees that as a feature, not a bug: "That weeds out all these speculative investors from that visa category."

Nordic Companies Expanding Into the United States

For European companies looking to establish a U.S. presence, Huikuri takes a holistic approach. The conversation is never about a single visa type. Instead, he works through a checklist with each client: What are the long-term goals? Who needs to relocate? What is the company structure?

The answer might be an E-2 for the company's CEO, with the added benefit that the E-2 framework also allows the transfer of additional employees from the investing company's home country. Or it could be an L-1 intra-company transfer. Or something else entirely.

"It's all about looking into the future and seeing what are the long-term goals and which visa type makes sense for that particular scenario," he says. The ability to guide that conversation in Finnish or Swedish, for clients who prefer it, is a competitive advantage few U.S. immigration attorneys can offer.

Teamwork Between Attorney and Client is Important

When asked for a success story, Huikuri does not name a single headline case. Instead, he points to a pattern he has seen across his most rewarding outcomes.

"The most rewarding cases are those where I'm able to communicate the expectations early," he says. Too many clients, he explains, assume that hiring an immigration attorney means their job is done. In reality, the client's work begins after the attorney is hired, especially for document-heavy petitions like the E-2 or EB-1A.

An EB-1A extraordinary ability petition can involve 600 pages and 200 individual exhibits. An E-2 requires a thorough description of the business model, the investment, and the operational plan. None of that can be built by the attorney alone.

"The level of teamwork really decides on approval or denial," Huikuri says. "Ultimately, the clients know their own background better than I do." The cases where he is able to set those expectations clearly from the start, and where the client rises to meet them, are consistently the ones that succeed.

AI in Immigration Law

Huikuri is neither an AI skeptic nor an uncritical adopter. He sees the current moment as a period of "growing pains," where the technology is available but not yet mature enough to be a complete solution.

"It's a good tool, and I think we need to learn how to use it properly," he says. "But a machine cannot replace critical thinking."

He is honest about a more human concern, too. As AI becomes embedded in everyday communication, he has started receiving client emails that were clearly drafted by ChatGPT. It is a small thing, but it reflects a larger question about the future of professional relationships. "I still want that human connection," he says.

For Huikuri, the ideal role of AI in immigration law is as a powerful assistant, not a replacement for the judgment and nuance that complex cases demand.

Advice for Prospective Immigrants to the United States

Huikuri closes with two pieces of counsel for anyone navigating the U.S. immigration system right now.

First, have patience. "Right now there is more complexity and more uncertainty than previously," he says. Attorneys are working hard to make sense of a shifting landscape, and nothing good comes from rushing the process.

Second, always have a backup plan. Whatever the immigration goal, there should be a Plan A and a Plan B. The system is too unpredictable to rely on a single pathway.

It is practical, clear-eyed advice from someone who has seen the immigration process from nearly every angle, as a government adjudicator in Finland, as a paralegal in Los Angeles, as a corporate consultant at one of the world's largest professional services firms, and now as a law firm owner building something of his own.

From the northernmost law school in the world to a practice in the heart of LA, Hannu Huikuri has taken the long way around. And for his clients, that breadth of experience is exactly the point.

This article is part of the LegalBridge Magazine series, where we interview leading immigration attorneys and global mobility experts to share their insights, journeys, and advice.