The Receptionist Desk That Started It All

She was a senior in college, studying for the LSAT, when a friend mentioned a job. The friend's brother ran a small immigration law firm, and the pitch was not exactly ambitious: come work the front desk, put something on your resume, and it will help with your law school application.

Hiba Anver said yes. She had no idea what an immigration law firm actually did.

"I got a job as a receptionist at an immigration law firm," she recalls. "It was a small firm, so in addition to me working as a receptionist, they also then started to train me to draft immigration forms. And that's how I learned how to put together cases."

By the time she started law school, she had already built fluency in a practice she had never meant to pursue. Her real plan was to become a trial attorney, and for two years after graduation, that is exactly what she did. Immigration, she assumed, was a footnote in her story.

It turned out to be the story.

Why Hiba Anver Came Back to Immigration Law

The pull back to immigration was not nostalgia. It was intellectual honesty.

"I realized that immigration was actually the most complete area of law," Anver says, "because it offered something for every lawyer, depending on what that lawyer wanted to do."

She lays out the map almost as though it is a menu. A lawyer who wants transactional work can build a practice in employer sponsored immigration. A lawyer drawn to individual clients can work in family based cases, marriage based cases, or humanitarian work with asylees, refugees, and survivors of human trafficking or domestic violence. A lawyer who wants to litigate can file motions, file appeals, or take cases to federal court.

"It is one of the most complete areas of law," she says, "and allows you to exercise pretty much whichever lawyer muscle you wish to exercise."

That breadth is what brought her back. What made her stay was something else.

Inside Erickson Immigration Group: Building Corporate Immigration Programs That Actually Work

Anver joined Erickson Immigration Group as an associate attorney. Almost thirteen years later, she is a Partner at the firm, and the work she finds most rewarding has evolved past the individual case file.

“What I’ve genuinely enjoyed is moving beyond individual cases to help companies design and manage compliant immigration programs as part of their broader corporate strategy,” she says. “That includes ensuring their programs are effective, scalable, efficient, and fully compliant.”

She describes how companies evolve at different paces. Every company has its own internal structure, and any immigration program has to fit that structure rather than fight it. Where she does see room for growth, especially at smaller companies, is policy.

"Having a well defined immigration policy is really a good first step," she says. "And not every company necessarily has that."

For a company that has never sponsored a foreign worker, she argues, a policy is not paperwork. It is leverage. “When a company has a policy that supports hiring workers who may need sponsorship, it broadens the talent pool it can draw from.”

Hiba Anver's Leadership Philosophy: Raise Your Hand

Ask her for career advice and she does not reach for a framework. She reaches for the fundamentals.

"There really is no substitute for hard work and successful cases," she says. "Before anything else, an attorney has to make sure that they're mastering the fundamentals. Make sure that you're doing your cases correctly, on time, you're meeting your internal and external deadlines, you're meeting all necessary legal deadlines."

What comes next, in her telling, is not a secret handshake. It is a habit.

“Raise your hand and look for ways to make something better,” she says. That might mean volunteering to manage an ad hoc project, taking ownership of an internal process and redesigning how it works, or stepping into business development. “When leaders see that you’re invested, willing to contribute beyond the 9 to 5, and genuinely motivated to make your company better, doors begin to open.”

The Hardest Lesson in Management, From a Mentor She Has Not Forgotten

Anver is candid about the shock of becoming a people manager for the first time. When you are an individual contributor, your work is yours alone. When you become a manager, you are still responsible for your own work, and now you are responsible for everyone else's too.

"In the beginning, that is an adjustment," she says. "Don't be discouraged by that. Be strategic about it and be very intentional about your schedule." Carve out uninterrupted time for your own work, then move into the rest of your responsibilities. Protect the combination that works for you.

The second lesson came from her late boss, Jerry Erickson, and when she quotes him, she pauses as though the words still land.

“Jerry once told me that Being a leader can feel isolating at times, like you’re alone on an island,” she says. “You have to remember that others are always watching, and that your performance and behavior set the tone for those around you. But knowing that others are watching pushes you to lead with intention - through your actions, your performance, and your conduct.”

Lead by example. The phrase is common. The weight she gives it is not.

From Corporate Clients to the United Nations: A Wider Lens

In 2026, Anver attended a United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, and she describes the experience with a word she does not use casually: inspiring.

“There are extraordinary people doing deeply meaningful work - many of whom have dedicated their
professional lives to the causes they support,” she says. “Coming from the private sector, it was a completely different environment, and being able to see and connect with that world was an incredibly valuable experience.”
Her second takeaway was sharper. Around the world, women still lack access to resources, from capital to education to basic health. “Issues that affect women are inherently distinct,” she says, “because women face unique challenges and experience the impact of global events differently.”

Watching men and women dedicate their lives to those causes was, she says - repeating it without hesitation - “incredibly inspiring.”

Guiding Clients Through an Unprecedented Policy Era

Back in the corporate immigration world, the ground is moving. The second Trump administration has introduced what Anver calls "new and unprecedented developments" in immigration policy, and the firm has been, by her account, a steady hand for clients in a destabilized environment.

“We’re incredibly proud of having successfully guided our clients through these new developments,” she says. “It hasn’t been easy, but it’s kept us sharp.”

What gets her energized is watching clients keep growing and watching the team keep winning approvals even as the adjudication landscape shifts underneath them. What fascinates her is the interplay between immigration policy and economic policy, a topic she raised in Davos during the World Economic Forum.  “My experience at the World Economic Forum really reinforced my existing belief that immigration is not a short-term policy debate but rather an economic strategy that can greatly contribute to a country’s economic success.” 

On the $100,000 H-1B Fee: "A Non-Starter for Small Business"

Asked which single piece of immigration policy she would change, Anver does not hesitate.

"I would do away with the hundred thousand dollar fee that is now being attached to certain H-1Bs," she says. "I think that it's just too high."

Large companies, she acknowledges, can absorb that cost for select hires. Mid-sized businesses, small companies, and startups cannot. "A key component of our success as a country are our small businesses," she says. "A fee of that amount is just too burdensome."

She also pushes back on the broader critique of the H-1B itself. She thinks that most of the criticism of the H-1B visa program comes from a lack of understanding of how it works.  

“There is a great deal of misinformation about the H‑1B visa. Many experts agree that the program strengthens American innovation and competitiveness and contributes to job creation. Unfortunately, that message is often lost amid negative rhetoric.”

Why This Work Is Personal for Hiba Anver

There is a reason the conversation circles back, again and again, to what is at stake. For Anver, this is not an abstract field.

"I myself am the daughter of immigrants. I am the granddaughter of refugees," she says. "And everything that I have, everything that I've accomplished,, I owe to this country."

She speaks about the United States with a gratitude that is almost reverent, and immediately pairs it with a warning. The contributions of immigrants and their children to American success, she argues, cannot be overstated. Nor can the consequences if that talent starts choosing somewhere else.

"I want that innovation to continue to happen here," she says. "And I want us as a country and our citizens to benefit from the results of that innovation, of that economic success."

It is the throughline that connects everything else. The accidental receptionist job. The return to immigration because it was the most complete area of law. The thirteen years at Erickson Immigration Group. The corporate programs, the UN Commission, the fight against burdensome fees. The leadership philosophy of raising your hand.

All of it serves the same conviction: that American opportunity is real, that it is fragile, and that the people who keep renewing it deserve lawyers who understand exactly what they are protecting.