Mayara Soares did not begin her legal career in immigration law. Her path started in the litigation and arbitration world of São Paulo and eventually led her to found MMS Law, her own boutique immigration firm in the United States.

When she first entered the immigration field, she was candid about how unfamiliar it felt. “I didn’t know anything about immigration law. Anything,” she recalls. What began as an unexpected career turn quickly became a defining one.

Along the way, she also became the kind of person she now represents: an immigrant navigating visas, waiting on decisions, and trying to do everything right in a system that does not always tell you when, or how, it will answer.

From São Paulo Litigation to an Immigration Paralegal Desk

Mayara built her early legal career in Brazil, where she earned her LL.B. from PUC-SP and later completed a postgraduate specialization in Business Law at Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV). Before moving to the United States, she worked at some of São Paulo’s leading law firms, where her practice focused primarily on complex litigation and arbitration.

When Mayara and her husband moved to the United States about five years ago, she pursued an LL.M. at the University of Michigan, beginning the program in August 2022. Initially, she expected to continue working in litigation and arbitration, the areas in which she had built her career in Brazil. But transitioning into the U.S. legal market meant navigating a different legal system and ultimately opened the door to a new area of practice.

Her bilingual background led her to an opportunity with an immigration law firm, where she began working as a paralegal while completing her transition into the U.S. legal profession. Immigration law was entirely new to her, and the learning curve was steep. “The first few months were challenging because I was learning a completely different area of law,” she recalls. “But after three months, I fell in love.”

She immersed herself in immigration law, studying the system and the cases she worked on, and what began as an unexpected professional turn soon became the focus of her career.

“I ended up in immigration because my original plan was to continue in litigation and arbitration,” she says. “But looking back, it felt like God’s plan for me.”

Why Mayara Soares Launched MMS Law, Her Own Boutique Immigration Firm

After three years of practicing U.S. immigration law and working on more than 300 immigration cases across a range of employment- and family-based matters, Mayara decided the time had come to establish her own practice, MMS Law. Drawing on this extensive hands-on experience, she founded the firm to provide strategic, personalized immigration counsel to individuals, professionals, entrepreneurs, and businesses navigating the U.S. immigration system.

Her reasoning is rooted in how she wants to practice. “I like to be involved in the case from the beginning to the end,” she explains. At larger firms, attorneys may manage significant caseloads, making it more difficult to develop the type of close client relationship she envisioned for her own practice. “It’s like my boutique. I’m trying to establish a closer relationship with the clients.”

For Mayara, the step also felt like a natural progression. "If I had decided to stay in Brazil, I would be a partner in some law firm there," she says. "So why not have my own business?"

Who MMS Law Serves: Investors, Artists, Creators and Executives

MMS Law focuses primarily on employment- and investment-based immigration, including EB-1A, EB-2 NIW and EB-5 green card strategies, as well as temporary classifications such as O-1, L-1 and E-2. The firm serves professionals, executives, entrepreneurs, investors, artists, digital creators and their families seeking to build their careers, businesses and lives in the United States.

Mayara is particularly drawn to EB-1A and O-1 cases because of the range of extraordinary professionals behind them. Her clients have included athletes, artists working in television and theater, executives, physicians and, increasingly, digital creators. “There are a lot of talented people out there building remarkable careers through the internet right now,” she says.

What It Takes to Qualify for an EB-1A Visa

Mayara is candid that EB-1A, the extraordinary ability immigrant classification, is not an easy case to build. “It’s the first preference for the government,” she says. “You really need to be extraordinary.”

Unless the applicant has evidence of a one-time major internationally recognized award, the regulations generally require evidence satisfying at least three of ten regulatory criteria. Meeting three criteria, however, does not by itself establish eligibility. USCIS also evaluates the record as a whole to determine whether the applicant has demonstrated sustained national or international acclaim and recognition at the very top of the field.

In the cases she has worked on, some of the most common criteria include: 

• Published material in major media. Coverage about the applicant in outlets with strong circulation. It does not need to be U.S. media; international publications can count.

• A critical or leading role in a distinguished organization, which can be the applicant's own company if it is successful.

• High salary or other significantly high remuneration compared with others in the field. 

• Original contributions of major significance to the field, which may include innovations, methods, developments or other contributions whose significance can be demonstrated through objective evidence and expert testimony. 

• Authorship of articles in the field, published in major or professional media. "It's not someone that needs to write about you," she clarifies. "You need to write it."

• Display of the applicant's work at artistic exhibitions or showcases. This criterion is particularly relevant to artists whose work has been presented to the public in qualifying exhibitions or showcases. 

Above all, the case must show sustained acclaim. In her words, applicants must prove "that you were important, you are important, and you will be important."

AI as a "Best Friend," With a Warning

On technology, Mayara takes a balanced view. She does not believe AI will replace people. She sees it as a partnership.

If she needs to review a 40-page document, AI can summarize it and check whether forms are complete. But that never removes the need for her own review. "AI is like our best friend now, but we need to be careful," she says, noting that AI can produce claims that sound true but are not.

The biggest change she has noticed is how it reshapes time. "It started to change our perspective of time, because we gain time with AI."

A Higher Bar: Immigration Trends She Is Seeing Now

From the front lines, Mayara describes a system where “the bar is very high” and immigration policies and adjudication standards can change quickly.

One development she has been watching closely is USCIS’s discretion to deny certain petitions or applications without first issuing a Request for Evidence or Notice of Intent to Deny. For attorneys and applicants, that makes it even more important to present a complete and well-documented case from the outset.

“I need to prepare the case in the best way that I can, because we cannot assume we will have another opportunity to fix an issue or provide additional evidence after filing,” she says.

She also points to a significant 2026 Board of Immigration Appeals decision affecting certain individuals who travel on advance parole after accruing unlawful presence. In Matter of Delcarmen-Lara, the Board held that travel pursuant to advance parole constitutes a “departure” for purposes of the unlawful-presence bars, overruling its prior precedent in Matter of Arrabally and Yerrabelly.

As a result, individuals who have accrued more than 180 days of unlawful presence should carefully evaluate the immigration consequences before traveling on advance parole, including potential three- or ten-year inadmissibility bars depending on the period of unlawful presence.

“Things are getting more complicated right now,” Mayara says. “That is why it is increasingly important to understand the potential consequences before making immigration decisions.”

The One Reform She Would Make: Predictability

Asked what she would change about the U.S. immigration system if she could, Mayara answered in a single word: “Predictability.”

“You can do everything right, and you still don’t know when you will receive a decision or what that decision will be,” she says. Clearer and more consistent timelines, she believes, would ease much of the uncertainty families and professionals experience while navigating the immigration process.

It is a perspective shaped not only by her work as an immigration attorney, but also by her own experience as an immigrant. Having navigated the U.S. immigration system alongside her family, Mayara understands firsthand what it means to make important life decisions while waiting for an immigration outcome.

The Biggest Mistake Immigrants Make: Waiting Too Long

When it comes to avoidable errors, Mayara sees one pattern above all: people wait too long to act on their immigration path. They hold off until a visa is about to expire before filing for an extension, a change of status, or an EB-1 or EB-2 petition.

"People think, 'No, I will have time.' You will never have time," she says. Immigration processes are long and document-heavy. "So why wait? Why go to the next step only when you cannot breathe anymore?"

Her advice is concrete. “If you hold O-1 status and are approaching the end of your authorized period of stay, start the extension or next-step conversation well in advance — ideally around a year ahead when possible. ‘Let’s do things calmly.’” 

Her Advice to Immigrants: Stay Organized, Build Trust, Don't Give Up

Mayara's guidance to clients comes back to a few principles:

• Don't give up. The process is complicated, especially for people with families and children.

• Keep your records organized. Awards, articles you have written, press coverage about you: keep everything updated and in one place.

• Find a lawyer you can trust. "It's your life," she says. "You need to build a good relationship with your attorney and trust the process."

• Hold on to faith. Mayara often speaks with clients about her faith. "Sometimes we don't have much to say. So I only say, trust God, and God will help us get there."

She adds that the journey, while hard, can change you. "It's not easy, but it's worth it. I am a better person now. It was very transformative for me as a person and as a professional."

An Immigrant Representing Immigrants

As an immigrant who has personally navigated the U.S. immigration system alongside her family, Mayara says that experience shapes how she runs MMS Law. “I put myself in the client’s shoes all the time,” she says.

What she values most about the work is something she did not fully understand before entering the field. “We really can make a difference in a person’s life. This is huge for me.”

Today, she estimates, immigration makes up “90% of my life.” Rather than slowing her down, that seems to fuel her. “I really enjoy helping people,” she says, “and I think I can do more than I did.”

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Mayara Soares?
Mayara Soares is a Brazilian-trained lawyer and U.S. immigration attorney who founded MMS Law, a boutique immigration firm focused primarily on employment- and investment-based immigration. She holds an LL.M. from the University of Michigan and has worked on more than 300 U.S. immigration cases.

What types of immigration cases does MMS Law handle?
MMS Law focuses on EB-1A, EB-2 NIW and EB-5 green card strategies, as well as temporary visa classifications including O-1, L-1 and E-2. The firm serves professionals, executives, entrepreneurs, investors, artists, digital creators and their families.

What is the biggest mistake immigrants make, according to Mayara Soares?
Waiting too long to act. She encourages clients to begin planning renewals, extensions and longer-term immigration strategies well before their current status expires—for example, beginning the conversation about an O-1 renewal approximately one year in advance.

How many criteria are needed to qualify for EB-1A?
Unless an applicant can demonstrate a one-time major internationally recognized achievement, they generally must satisfy at least three of the ten regulatory criteria. Meeting three criteria alone, however, does not guarantee eligibility; USCIS also evaluates the evidence as a whole to determine whether the applicant has demonstrated sustained national or international acclaim and is among the small percentage who have risen to the very top of their field.

Why did Mayara Soares start MMS Law?
She wanted to be involved in each case from beginning to end and build closer relationships with clients. After working on more than 300 immigration matters, she founded MMS Law to create a boutique practice centered on personalized attention, strategic case preparation and direct attorney involvement.