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PELHAM · L-1A FIELD GUIDE

Does being described as a leader establish L-1A?

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THE DIRECT ANSWER

No. Explain actual primarily managerial or executive duties and supporting resources. A favorable adjective is not a complete role assessment.

Identify concrete responsibilities

Use genuine decisions and work allocation rather than turning every successful contribution into management.

Where the U.S. organization has been doing business for less than one year, assess L-1A new-office requirements, including sufficient premises, required foreign managerial or executive employment and ability to support the intended managerial or executive role within one year of approval. Where several family members or holding entities are involved, ask counsel to assess control using the actual governance documents rather than the corporate name alone. A first-line supervisor is not managerial merely because of the supervisory duties unless the employees supervised are professional, so a petition built purely on a headcount of operators is exposed. Confirm a parent, branch, subsidiary, or affiliate relationship; document one continuous year of full-time employment physically abroad within the relevant preceding three-year period; and show that the proposed American job is managerial or executive. Managerial capacity means primarily managing the organization or a department, supervising professional or managerial staff, or managing an essential function at a senior level, with authority over hiring and firing or over the function's direction.