Matthias Ohm never planned to build a life in the United States. When he arrived in Athens, Georgia in 2013, he was a newly trained German lawyer on an F-1 student visa, in town for a single year abroad before heading home to start his career.

Thirteen years later, he is a partner in the Immigration and Global Mobility group at Arnall Golden Gregory LLP (AGG) in Atlanta, guiding companies and foreign professionals through the very system he once navigated himself. Much of his practice is heavily focused on advising German and other international companies expanding into the U.S. market.

"What I didn't know at that time was that after you graduate as an international student, you can apply for a one-year work authorization (OPT) relatively easily," he recalls. "So I was like, well, before going back to Germany, maybe I'll try to find a place to work here in the U.S."

That one decision, made almost casually, set everything else in motion.

From Leverkusen to Athens, Georgia: An Unplanned Path Into Immigration Law

Ohm grew up in Leverkusen, Germany, a town he describes as known for two things: its soccer team and Bayer, the pharmaceutical giant that makes aspirin. His father's work with the company took the family to Ontario, Canada for three years in the early 1990s, giving him an early taste of life abroad.

After finishing high school and studying law in Germany, he wanted the exchange year he had never taken. He called international offices at multiple American law schools, but one conversation stood out. The program at the University of Georgia sounded the best, and the person on the phone told him Athens was a great place to study. He applied only there, and in 2013 he began his Master of Laws (LL.M.) at UGA.

What followed was a string of discoveries. He learned he could work for a year after graduation. Then he learned he could sit for a U.S. bar exam, and in 2014 he took the New York bar. An unpaid internship brought him to AGG, where the Global Mobility and Immigration group had a strong focus on German speaking countries.

"Being able to speak German made it much easier to correspond with clients," he says. "I fit in pretty well from a personality standpoint."

Winning the H-1B Lottery and Fighting for the Georgia Bar

After Ohm passed the New York bar, AGG asked if he wanted to stay longer and offered to sponsor a visa. He was selected in the H-1B lottery, securing three years of work authorization, and moved from an international paralegal role to staff attorney.

The path to associate came with one more obstacle. To advance, he needed to take the Georgia bar exam, and the state initially told him he would have to complete another LL.M. or an entire JD first.

"I thought, 'There's no way I'm doing that,'" he says.

With support from the dean at UGA and his colleagues at AGG, Georgia eventually relented. He passed the Georgia bar in 2019, became an associate that same year, and in 2026 was named partner.

His advice to aspiring attorneys hoping to follow a similar path is refreshingly simple. "Keep working hard, be motivated, have a very good attitude, don't give up," he says. But his strongest conviction is about something else entirely: the people around you.

"Surround yourself, if you can, with coworkers and employees that you like, because personally, that is almost more important than the area of law you practice. No matter what you do, if you're not surrounded by anyone you like, you're not going to be very good at it. That was a big part of why I ended up staying here."

How AGG Hires Immigration Talent: Languages, Lived Experience, and Global Interns

Ohm's practice group at AGG has developed a distinctive approach to hiring. Language skills top the list, since so many of the firm's clients speak multiple languages. The group also runs a steady pipeline of interns from foreign countries, law students and legal residents who spend three or four months with the team, some of whom are later hired. The practice group leader teaches at UGA, opening another recruiting channel.

He also believes lived experience matters in this field. "In the immigration world, anybody who is an immigrant themselves is helpful, because they went through the process. Almost all of them probably struggled through the process."

On the broader legal hiring market, he is candid about how compressed timelines have become, with large firms recruiting summer associates before first year students even receive their initial grades. For students trying to stand out that early, he suggests leaning on test scores, undergraduate records, and activities outside of school. "Other than that, just don't give up. Keep fighting."

AI in Immigration Law: A Time Saver That Still Needs a Human Check

AGG is a full service firm of roughly 220 lawyers, and Ohm says the entire organization is leaning into artificial intelligence, with extensive training and carefully vetted tools tailored to legal work.

In his own immigration practice, he sees clear wins. AI helps with background research, drafting company and job descriptions, updating resumes, breaking down job duties, preparing experience letters, and triaging large batches of client documents. "A client sends you 20 documents. You can process them through firm-approved AI tools and just get a first understanding of what everything is, a list, what options would be available."

Translation is another standout. Work that once required official translators can now be understood in seconds, at least for a first pass.

But he draws firm boundaries. Completing USCIS forms remains human work, and everything AI produces must be verified. "Extremely important to double check everything AI does, because it can still generate information that appears credible but is inaccurate."

Data security is the non-negotiable. The firm restricts which tools attorneys can use and invests in platforms that keep client data walled off from the outside world. Engagement letters are updated so clients know when AI is involved, though Ohm suspects most clients would welcome it. "The bills will be cheaper at the end of the day if you're faster and you can do more work."

Will AI Push Law Firms Toward Flat Fee Pricing?

Ohm expects AI to accelerate a shift in how legal work is priced. "It may lead to more flat fee agreements instead of by the hour work, just because it's much harder to price out by the hour when you're using AI. I maybe can do it in one minute, but that doesn't mean that the work is done in one minute."

His immigration group already blends hourly and flat rate billing, and always has. "In that sense, we may be a little bit ahead of the game compared to some other practice areas."

Staying Current When Immigration Law Changes Fast

If there is one theme that defines immigration practice in 2026, it is velocity. "Immigration practice is extremely fast-moving and unpredictable, and the laws and rules can change very quickly," Ohm says.

His first recommendation for any immigration attorney is membership in the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), which sends daily updates that can be filtered by practice niche, from consular work to USCIS filings to specific regions. He also suggests training an AI tool to deliver a personalized morning briefing of overnight developments. Within AGG, attorneys forward every new development to the whole group.

Even with all of that, the pace is punishing. He notes that negative policy changes often drop on Friday afternoons, sometimes landing in the middle of the night for colleagues and clients in Europe.

"Right now, as an immigration lawyer, you have to be 24/7. Constant vigilance," he says. "A rapid change in policy or rules can suddenly put someone's ability to live and work here at risk, which seems to be happening more frequently lately."

The Biggest Immigration Mistakes Businesses Make

Ohm's practice is more than 95 percent business immigration. AGG's clients are largely small to mid sized foreign owned companies, many of them traditional family owned businesses in machinery, automotive manufacturing, logistics, medical devices, and the growing tech scene in and around Atlanta. The work spans everything from business visitor visas and treaty investor visas to L-1s, H-1Bs, O-1s, green cards, and citizenship, along with a fast growing compliance practice covering I-9s, E-Verify, and ICE audits.

From that vantage point, two costly mistakes come up again and again.

Mistake one: assuming no work visa is needed. Companies often believe their employees can simply arrive on a business visitor visa or through ESTA. "That is a very dangerous misconception," Ohm warns. "In some cases it is totally possible, but not in all cases." In one scenario he describes, a company may spend up to $10,000 in visa costs just to send an employee to the U.S. legally for two weeks.

Mistake two: treating immigration as an afterthought. When companies plan a U.S. expansion, they think about everything except the immigration timeline, which is often the longest item on the list. "They're ready to send their employee over, and it's like, yeah, but it's going to take a while."

His summary is blunt: "It's much harder to get a work visa than to incorporate a company in the U.S."

How Long Do U.S. Work Visas Really Take?

For business readers planning ahead, Ohm offers a realistic range. A first time E visa for a treaty trader or investor company can take months and months. Regular USCIS petition processing can easily run six, nine, or twelve months, though paying roughly $3,000 extra for premium processing can speed things up. Even after approval, applicants still need a consular appointment abroad, which can take anywhere from two weeks to six or nine months depending on the location.

"It can be anywhere from two weeks to a year," he says. The lesson for every company: start early.

The Reluctant Immigrant Who Stayed

There is a quiet symmetry in Matthias Ohm's story. The German student who did not know he could stay became the partner who helps others navigate that same maze, in a practice built on language, patience, and hard won familiarity with a system that rarely stands still.

His formula has not changed since that first unpaid internship: work hard, stay motivated, keep a good attitude, and choose your people well. In a field where the rules can change quickly, those may be the only constants worth betting on.