YouTube Law Firm Seminar Video Leads to DOL Application Scrutiny
One of Pittsburgh’s biggest law firms is now facing increased scrutiny from the U.S. Department of Labor because of an immigration law seminar it held last year.
Excerpted in a video clip posted on YouTube in May 2007, the seminar at Cohen & Grigsby focused, at one point, on what employers needed to do to show they searched without success for qualified U.S. workers before applying for legal resident status for foreign workers. But some comments in the clip “seem[ed] to be about getting around the law rather than complying with it,” recounts the Pittsburgh Business Times.
Resulting news coverage led to calls by politicians for a Department of Labor investigation. Now, after auditing the law firm’s filed permanent labor certification applications, beginning last year, the DOL announced today that it is placing the firm’s pending applications into department-supervised recruitment over concerns identified by the audits. This requires the firm to get advance department approval for efforts to recruit foreign workers, the Business Times explains.
Additional details are provided in a DOL press release published by the SunHerald.
Related coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “Firm Takes Heat for YouTube Debut”
ABAJournal.com: “Major N.Y. Immigration Law Firm Investigated by Dept. of Labor”
