Grossman Young & Hammond is Washington-area's newest immigration firm—and expertly positioned to capitalize on ever-changing directives flowing from President Donald Trump's administration.

Name partners Sandra Grossman and Becki Young said their new Silver Spring and Bethesda-based firm was a long time in the making. While Grossman Young & Hammond formally opened its doors last week, predecessor firms Grossman Law and Hammond Young Immigration Law maintained a strategic alliance for the three years preceding their newly-announced merger.

Grossman and Young said the new firm combines their many years of individual expertise focusing on the immigration law matters of interest to businesses, as well as the humanitarian aspects of immigration law of interest to individuals, particularly involving admissibility and deportation issues. They said the Trump era has generated a flood of calls and emails from prospective clients, prompted every time a news story appears about travel bans or the migrant caravan moving toward America's southern border.

“With the change in administrations, it became more important than ever to talk to our clients about all of the options that they might have available to them,” Grossman said. Wide-ranging immigration policy changes occur on a regular basis, she said, and “traditional” avenues open to immigrants and refugees are being cut off by the current administration.

Grossman is a litigator who handles a variety of admissibility issues for high-profile clients, including politically sensitive issues, and she has experience representing clients before Interpol. Young has a hospitality practice that she said serves clients adversely affected by Trump's changes to Temporary Protected Status polices for foreign nationals. Her clients are in industries ranging from information technology, investment banking and securities, nonprofits, manufacturing and health care.

Before beginning her own firm with Denise Hammond, now senior of counsel at the new firm, Young worked as of counsel at Baker McKenzie until 2014.

Together, the duo expects to retain all of their previous clients. Some of their prominent past representations have included Yeonmi Park, a North Korean dissident, Joey Alexander, an Indonesian child and prominent jazz artist, and the national security laboratory at Los Alamos, New Mexico.

They indicated they were not optimistic about the chances of comprehensive immigration reform proposals passing through Congress in 2019 but said they hoped the new Democrat-controlled House of Representatives would keep immigration policies and practices from moving “backward.”

The pair's clients often communicate with their attorneys remotely, making their physical location irrelevant for many clients. Other clients, Grossman said, appreciate the firm's position between immigration courts in Fairfax, Virginia, and Baltimore.

“We're in the D.C.-area, but you don't have to get stuck in traffic to come see us,” Young said.

The new female-led firm has nine total attorneys, with support staff bringing total personnel to about 22 employees.