Clark Hill has bolstered its budding immigration practice by combining with a Los Angeles boutique, the Law Offices of Carl Shusterman, and adding the firm's five lawyers.

Carl Shusterman joined the Detroit-based firm as senior counsel Monday, along with senior attorneys Angeline Chen and Cheryl Gertler, and associates Jennifer Cohn Rozdzielski and Lorraine Tong. Six paralegals and support staff are also making the move.

Like other leaders of small groups that have recently joined larger shops, Shusterman pointed to cross-selling and his team's future as key features of their decision to join Clark Hill.

Michael Nowlan, a co-leader of Clark Hill's immigration law practice, said the lawyers are a timely addition to the practice group, which now numbers 21 lawyers in six offices. In addition to Los Angeles, the roughly 650-lawyer firm has immigration lawyers in San Francisco, Detroit, Washington, D.C., Austin, and Frisco, Texas.

"It's a great combination for us. The team has great experience in employment-based cases, in family-based cases and in removal-based cases," Nowlan said.

The additional lawyers are needed, because "everything has gotten harder under the current administration," according to Nowlan, who added that the firm is seeing "more pushback" from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services on immigration matters, and more anxiety from clients.

Shusterman, who launched his boutique in 1989, said he started talking to Clark Hill a few months ago, because he is friends with Thomas Ragland, an immigration lawyer who is the member in charge of the firm's D.C. office.

He said Clark Hill provides many cross-selling opportunities to his group because of its large client base, particularly in the health care sector, where Shusterman's longtime clients include Merritt Hawkins, a physician staffing company in Dallas. He also represents Adventist Health on the West Coast.

As proof of the fit between the firms, Schusterman said he met a lawyer on the elevator on his first day at Clark Hill and learned that she represents hospitals.

In addition to immigration work for corporations—such as helping a hospital secure work visas for nurses or physicians—the small group of lawyers also represents families seeking legal status, and defends people facing deportation. Schusterman is a former trial lawyer for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Schusterman said he talked to some other firms recently about potential combinations, including large immigration firms, but unlike Clark Hill, the others were interested in the boutique's clients, but not all of its people.

"I am 70 now. I'm not going to throw my younger attorneys and paralegals overboard. They are great," he said.

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