Principal of Baltazar Global LLC, Chicago, Illinois
Ms. Baltazar practices exclusively in the area of immigration and nationality law, with a primary focus on business immigration. She has served on various AILA committees at the local and national level, most recently at AILA National’s Annual Conference Planning Committee and Fundamentals Online Course Committee, as well as AILA Chicago’s Midwest Regional Conference Planning Committee. In addition, Ms. Baltazar routinely provides pro bono legal services to individuals seeking immigration benefits and currently serves on the Junior Leadership Board of the National Immigrant Justice Center.

Attorney, Principal and Managing Director, Immigration Law Associates, P.C. Skokie, IL
Ms. Burek has 15 years of experience providing the highest quality of legal services to individuals, families and employers in need of immigration assistance. She concentrates her practice in family and employment-based sponsorship, including temporary work visas, perm-based sponsorship, national interest waivers and EB-1 petitions. Ms. Burek relies on her depth of experience and dedication to the immigrant community, to ensure that the firm competently represents the interests of its clients, with professionalism and skill necessary to achieve their immigration goals. A native Polish speaker and an immigrant herself, she enjoys assisting the many immigrant communities throughout the United States to realize their dreams of living and working in this country. Ms. Burek is a weekly guest on Chicago’s Polish radio (Polski FM 92.7) and a frequent presenter at various immigration-related seminars at educational institutions, churches and professional and community organizations.

Partner with Minsky, McCormick & Hallagan, P.C., Chicago, IL
Ms. Leja’s practice includes both employment-based and family-based immigration law. She is also an adjunct professor at the John Marshall Law School in Chicago, teaching Business Aspects of Immigration Laws and she serves as a Board Member for the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights, a national organization that advocates for the rights and best interests of immigrant children in removal proceedings. Ms. Leja was inspired to practice immigration law based on her own personal immigration story. She was born in Poland and immigrated to the United States when she was eight years old. Ms. Leja’s personal journey was featured in Super Lawyers Magazine. In 2018, she was recognized by the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin as one of the top 40 Under 40 attorneys in Chicago, the only immigration attorney to be listed that year, and was also named a Leading Lawyer and one of Leading Women Lawyers in Illinois by Leading Lawyers, a distinction given to only 15 women practicing immigration law in Illinois.

Barnes and Thornburg, Chicago, IL
Mr. Shah is a partner in the firm’s immigration and labor and employment practice group. He is committed to helping employers and individuals comply with the complex requirements of U.S. immigration law. Mr. Shah services employers of all sizes who seek assistance with audits by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to ensure compliance with I-9 recordkeeping requirements and employers’ responsibility to verify their employees’ work authorization, preventative counseling and internal audits and guidance to ensure compliance with evolving immigration rules, executive actions and legislation. He also works with individual immigrants. As a child of immigrants from India, Mr. Shah understands the deeply personal nature of the immigration process. He was recognized as the Young Lawyer of the Year in Cook County by the Illinois State Bar Association in 2014-15 and received the South Asian Bar Association of North America’s Cornerstone Award in 2015 for his contributions to the legal profession. Most recently, Mr. Shah was a fellow with the Emerging Leaders Program of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

Attorney, Masuda, Funai, Eifert & Mitchell, LTD, Schaumburg, IL
Ms. Vaid is co-chair of the firm’s Immigration practice. She assists multinational corporations and business professionals with temporary and permanent residence matters, including a full range of nonimmigrant and immigrant visas, including PERM applications and I-140 petitions. Ms. Vaid provides strategic advice to employers on a wide range of immigration issues, including I-9 compliance and audits, corporate restructuring and mergers and acquisitions, complex requests for evidence, physician J-1 waivers, nonimmigrant visa waivers and short and long-term immigration options for corporations and individuals. She has been practicing immigration law exclusively for nearly two decades, and she represents clients from a wide variety of industries.