What It Takes to Navigate Immigration — and Build a Business Doing It

Summary

Podcast Summary: Your Next Move — "What It Takes to Navigate Immigration — and Build a Business Doing It"

Episode Date: March 31, 2026
Host: Inc. Magazine (Live at the Inc. 5000 conference)
Guest: Jinhee Wild, founder of WA Law Group (Immigration Law Firm, Maryland)

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Episode Overview

This episode features a candid, insightful conversation with immigration attorney Jinhee Wild, who shares her journey from first-generation immigrant to founder of a multimillion-dollar law firm and recent Inc. 5000 honoree. Wild reflects on the unique challenges of immigration law, the importance of empathy and clear client communication, the impact of shifting political landscapes, and her philosophy in building a sustainable, client-centered business. She also addresses her retirement and hopes for the next generation in the profession.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Beginnings: From Political Campaigns to Immigration Law

• Jinhee Wild's Entry into the Field (01:20)
  • Began legal career after working on Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign.
  • Joined a Maryland immigration law firm; her background as a first-generation immigrant and former prosecutor made her uniquely empathetic and prepared for the work.
  • Noted frustration seeing clients suffer due to poor legal communication and errors.
  • Quote:
    "I have seen so many clients...in the courtroom that were there because their immigration process and paperwork got messed up along the way. And I thought maybe I can do better so that my clients will not end up in immigration court in a deportation setting."
    — Jinhee Wild (01:35)

Client Communication: The Bedrock of Business Growth

• Problems in the System (02:27)

  • Immigration law is highly "forms-driven".

  • Many lawyers underestimate the value of clear and prompt client communication.

  • First-generation experience informed her commitment to transparency—clients left in the dark experience anxiety for years.

  • Instituted a 24-hour response guarantee (phone/email), even when traveling.

  • Growth through trust:

    • Started solo with two assistants (2009).
    • Firm now with 12 people and multimillion-dollar revenues—all via word-of-mouth, no advertising.

  • Quote:
    "My clients know what's going on with their case...they don't have to call us, we call them."
    — Jinhee Wild (04:22)

  • Quote:
    "I went three years without a paycheck in order to get this going. But after several years of getting approval track record...it was almost like a switch being turned on at one point several years later, and from there it just grew."
    — Jinhee Wild (07:20, 08:46)

How Immigration Policy & Processes Change Over Time

• Evolution Across Presidential Administrations (09:06, 13:03)

  • Regulatory policies change regularly, affecting adjudication of cases.

  • Not a simple partisan divide—Democratic and Republican administrations both tighten and loosen enforcement in different ways.

  • Approvals sometimes impacted by unpredictable policy shifts—careful monitoring and rapid pivots are essential.

  • Training staff is important, but even more crucial is explaining system changes to clients.

  • Slow system modernization—still reliant on paper filings.

  • Quote:
    "Immigration, unlike any other legal field, seems to be very prone to the winds of the politics."
    — Jinhee Wild (16:28)

Policy Advocacy and System Recommendations

• Visa System Limitations (14:38–16:12)
  • U.S. employer needs are pressing—years-long waits hamper economic growth.
  • Advocates shifting visa quotas:
    • Eliminate diversity and sibling visas to reallocate ~100,000 slots to employment-based visas.
  • Legal immigration needs expansion and modernization to reduce illegal immigration.
  • Quote:
    "In order to minimize or reduce the illegal immigration, you need to increase the legal immigration."
    — Jinhee Wild (14:28)

Business Growth Philosophy

• Methodical, Empathetic Growth (06:46, 17:01)
  • Growth via excellent service, not advertising—“honest growth”.
  • Comparing her firm’s 16-year trajectory to rapid-scaling tech companies.
  • Client referrals flourished due to high success rate and attention to emotional/psychological needs.

Leadership Transition & Retirement

• Succession Planning (17:51, 18:14)
  • Carefully planned retirement and transition for five years.
  • Promoted long-time associate (hired out of law school, 17 years with firm) to managing attorney.
  • Wild now consults on management and operations—not practicing law.
  • Retirement plans: traveling with her (also retired) husband.
  • Quote:
    "I gave it to the partner, my former associate attorney, because I trust that she will continue my legacy of taking care of our clients the way they deserve."
    — Jinhee Wild (18:48)

Hopes for the Next Generation

• Advice to Future Immigration Lawyers (20:26)
  • Empathize with clients’ long, arduous journeys; maintain responsive, compassionate service.
  • Organize legal files to be “easy for government officials to say yes” due to their heavy caseloads.
  • Treat each client as you’d want to be treated.
  • Quote:
    "You're not just filing. You're telling a story."
    — Podcast Host (21:39)
  • Quote:
    "These government officials are very overworked...They have few minutes to find what they're looking for. Anything you can do to make it easy for them...will help you in the long run."
    — Jinhee Wild (21:48)

Reflections on the Inc 5000 Conference

• Personal Reflections (22:32)

  • Overwhelmed, grateful, and humbled to be among the honorees.

  • Firm ranked 1129 out of 5000.

  • Credits staff, clients, and steady, values-driven growth.

  • Quote:
    "I'm very proud of my staff and my clients for trusting us with their very important life decisions..."
    — Jinhee Wild (17:17)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “My clients know what's going on with their case...they don't have to call us, we call them.” (04:22)
• “I went three years without a paycheck in order to get this going.” (07:20)
• “In order to minimize or reduce the illegal immigration, you need to increase the legal immigration.” (14:28)
• “Immigration, unlike any other legal field, seems to be very prone to the winds of the politics.” (16:28)
• “You're not just filing. You're telling a story.” (21:39)
• “Anything you can do to make it easy for them...will help you in the long run.” (21:48)
• “I feel very humbled and overwhelmed at the caliber of people that are attending here.” (22:32)

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Important Timestamps

• 01:20: Jinhee Wild explains her transition to immigration law and early observations.
• 02:27: Insights on systemic issues and her unique client communication strategy.
• 06:46: The slow, referral-based growth of her firm.
• 09:06: Shifts in immigration policy through multiple presidencies.
• 14:28: Advocacy for legal immigration expansion.
• 17:01: Reflections on meaningful, values-driven growth.
• 18:14: Succession planning and passing on the firm.
• 20:26: Hopes for future lawyers and advice on effective practice.
• 22:32: Emotional response to Inc. 5000 recognition.

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The Takeaway

Jinhee Wild’s journey is one of perseverance, empathy, and integrity. She built a thriving practice by prioritizing transparent, timely client communication and deeply understanding both the human and procedural sides of immigration law—strategies that led to sustained, referral-driven business growth. Her story underlines the need for ethical leadership, adaptability in the face of political shifts, and thoughtful succession planning—all while keeping clients’ humanity at the center of every case.

Transcript

[Narrator]

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[Podcast Host]

Welcome to youo Next Move the podcast. We're here live at the Inc. 5000 conference in Gala in Phoenix, Arizona. And yeah, Lei. Please welcome my guest. Can you introduce yourself?

[Jinhee Wild]

Hi, I'm Jinhee Wild. I'm a founder of a law immigration law firm called WA Law Group based out of Maryland, Rockville.

[Podcast Host]

How did you first get into immigration law in the first place?

[Jinhee Wild]

Well, that's an interesting question. I was actually working for Al Gore's 2000 presidential election when he lost. I joined a small law firm in Maryland because I was still involved in politics. I was based there. So I joined the firm and that firm just happened to be a immigration law firm. And because of my trial experience before with the government and as a prosecutor, I was asked to stay step in to do deportation cases. And I have seen so many clients and other people in the courtroom that were there because their immigration process and paperwork got messed up along the way. And I thought maybe I can do better so that my clients will not end up in immigration court in a deportation setting.

[Podcast Host]

So what were the problems that you saw with the system at that time?

[Jinhee Wild]

Well, the biggest problem that I saw was that immigration law is very forms driven. So a lot of the lawyers that are getting into this immigration field downplay the importance of the detail and communication with the clients and things. I am a first generation immigrant myself and I saw firsthand how the non communication from the lawyer to my parents were hurting them. They didn't know what was going on with their cases. And the case takes years right now from the time they first start filing paperwork to actually getting a green card or a permanent residency is minimum four to five years. In that time you don't know what's going on with your cases and they're very nervous about it, understandably. Yes. I think the communication and letting the clients know what is going on with their cases on a, you need to know this, because I just found out. You need to know. So my first action with my clients was to institute a 24 hour response time. Emails, phone calls get returned within 24 hours. And I did that even when I was traveling like this. I retired at the end of 2024.

[Podcast Host]

Congratulations.

[Jinhee Wild]

Thank you. But when I founded the firm in 2009 after being with another firm is because my partner, who was traveling a lot supposedly to drum up business, wasn't doing it. The customer was lacking. When the WA Law group was established, that was my policy. The clients get responded to, even if it's, I'm out of the country, I will get back at X date, I will get back to you. Then. Even that gets sent out within 24 hours and my clients know what's going on with their case. The minute we find out what's going on with their case, they don't have to call us, we call them. So with that, they know what's happening. They also know why it's happening. Many times it's the policy changes or just slow processing times by the agencies, government agencies. Right now we are in a government shutdown. Immigration service is not affected. Uscis, however, Department of Labor is shut down. State Department is still operating, but out of the three agencies, Department of Labor, uscis, State Department, one of the agencies is shut down. Right now, we can't file cases with the Department of Labor. People are saying, why can't my cases be filed? We have to explain those explanations. It takes five minutes of our time. But it is so important to our clients. And I think that is the secret of how I was able to grow my business from myself and two assistants 16 years ago to 12 people in the firm and multimillion dollar business because the clients trust us to inform them of what's going on with their cases.

[Podcast Host]

You were able to empathize with your clients because you'd been in those shoes before.

[Jinhee Wild]

Yes, we are very blessed. And I feel like I went out on a high note, so to speak, making this list for the first time.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. Well, congratulations. And tell me about building the business from 2009 now to 2024. What was that process of growth like? Was there a moment that kind of put you guys into a new level of growth or was it kind of a slow and gradual.

[Jinhee Wild]

It was a very slow and gradual growth. We do not advertise at our law firm. There are a lot, many lawyers that do. You See it on bus billboards. Billboards and stuff. We don't do that. All of our clients are word of mouth referrals. And our clients love us because we care about their cases the way it would affect us if it was our case. I think that that kind of growth takes time. I went three years without a paycheck in order to get this going. But after several years of getting approval track record, and we do have, we don't have 100% approval, but we are very close, like 99.5% or something. And those denials, few denials, is because of change in policy, how they adjudicate a case rather than how we submit the case. We prepare. As a. Because I was a government lawyer for several years, I actually prepared cases with view of a government adjudicator officer in mind and made it as simple and easy for them to understand as, you know, I would like to see it. So that helped us. So that good approval track record accumulating several years got the word around. Oh, and by the way, they have wonderful track record. They have wonderful customer service. They actually return our phone calls. They care. It was almost like a switch being turned on at one point several years later, and from there it just grew.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, I'd love to hear it because, you know, you've been in immigration law for almost 25 years. 24.

[Jinhee Wild]

24 years, yes.

[Podcast Host]

So how have things changed over that time? You know, you've gone from, you know, George W. Bush to Obama to Trump to Biden to Trump again. So how have things sort of changed in the, you know.

[Jinhee Wild]

Well, I mean, immigration service has changed from president to president. They always do. They tweak it. The statute doesn't change much because that takes congressional action. But regulation that implements those statutes do change. And it's not always the Democratic presidents are favorable for immigration. That's just not the case. Their policy manuals change all the time. And those policy manuals tell the adjudicators or officer reviewing the case how to review certain case. They tell them what to focus on. So those being changed all the time, you know, every few years, they tweak it and it impacts greatly. A person who is applying for a green card process starts with the Department of Labor and the employer will have to say, okay, we have done the local recruitment. We needed hundred people to apply and we only were able to find 20 people. We are now short 80 people. I need to sponsor depending on the size of the company. You don't want to sponsor 80 people because that's like majority of what you need. But what we told them was you can do about 10 to 15, maximum 20% of your workforce because the idea is to supplement your US hire, not replace it. So you do that and then Department of Labor may say, oh, that 20% is too much. One day changing. It's been like that for many years, but all of a sudden someone said, oh that's too much. Then 20% gets denied. So that's the kind of change in policy that I'm talking about, that it is very difficult to predict what's going to happen because you can do the same thing year after year, but if the policy changes, you have to pivot. So we've done that and we refile cases and things like that and we still have a very good track record. But those little bit of changes now and then gets us not to the 100% approval.

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[Podcast Host]

I would imagine that's the kind of thing that you really need to kind of train employees to handle.

[Jinhee Wild]

Yeah. How to training the employees is important, but more important is explaining to the clients why this happened. Actually George W. Bush, his tenure was very good for immigration. He was pro immigrant. President Obama was to certain extent. But towards the end of his tenure he became little bit more restrictive and he instituted policies at the USCIS level that was more restrictive. You need to vet more heavily and State Department was vetting it heavily and sending cases back to uscis. So that happened actually under Obama administration tail end of it first Trump administration basically sat on all of those cases, didn't do anything and it took four years to get that dislodged. So instead of four to five year process, it became eight years process. And people were saying oh I give up, it's not worth it that kind of thing. So that happens. Illegal immigration problem has to be addressed. However, in order to minimize or reduce the illegal immigration, you need to increase the legal immigration.

[Podcast Host]

Right. And streamline that process.

[Jinhee Wild]

Exactly, exactly. We are still paper submission process. We don't do it digital. There are some digital applications that we can submit, but not all of it. I think number of visas available for employment base, especially because you have US Employers needing these workers and needing them now, not five years from now. Increasing those visa numbers so that our US Employers can be productive with immigrants and US Workers and helping the economy that way. That's crucial. I applauded Trump administration's desire to get rid of the diversity visa or sibling visa because it takes so long anyway. And diversity. Everyone wants to come to the United States or at least they used to. You don't need a diversity visa in order to get certain people get rid of that category. That's 60,000 visa numbers right there available to the US employers at the employment side. Sibling visa 40,000. Get rid of that and give it to the employment base. That helps the economy. The employment based Immigration helps the U.S. economy.

[Podcast Host]

Right. Bring people in to work.

[Jinhee Wild]

Yes. Legally.

[Podcast Host]

Legally, Legally, yes.

[Jinhee Wild]

So I think that is what I advocated for 20 years. They're not listening. But

[Podcast Host]

like you said, it's slow incremental progress and maybe you take two steps back, you take one step forward.

[Jinhee Wild]

It has to.

[Podcast Host]

But that's politics, right?

[Jinhee Wild]

Yes, it does. And immigration, unlike any other legal field, seems to be very prone to the winds of the politics.

[Podcast Host]

Well, yeah, and as you said, it is an interesting legal field where there is so much emotion, there's so much hope and dreams sort of caught up in it. So it makes sense that you're really prioritizing, you know, the feelings and emotions of the people of your clients. And yeah, I can imagine how that's a very powerful thing for them, especially if they've had bad experiences at other agencies. Right.

[Jinhee Wild]

Yeah. I'm very gratified that we were able to grow this much. When I hear about all these other tech companies. They started 10 years ago, eight years ago, and they're already at Inc 5000. It took us 16. So it wasn't a fast growth, but it was a steady growth. And I'm very proud of my staff and my clients for trusting us with their very important life decisions that they had to make and helped us grow this much.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, and it's honest growth too. You know, unlike a lot of tech companies that just find a small problem that they can solve and scale it up as much as possible. You're changing lives. So that's really admirable.

[Jinhee Wild]

Thank you. Thank you very much.

[Podcast Host]

Talk to me about, you know, deciding to retire and kind of leaving the firm in good hands. How did you kind of come to the decision that it was made?

[Jinhee Wild]

Well, I've been actually planning that for about five years before I actually stepped away. I'm still the founder, retired, but I'm still the founder, which is why I'm I guess, taking the victory lap, as it were, today.

[Podcast Host]

As you deserve.

[Jinhee Wild]

Thank you. I hired the current managing attorney right out of law school and she has been with me for 17 years.

[Podcast Host]

Oh wow.

[Jinhee Wild]

I trained her from as an intern to associate attorney to partner to managing attorney. And so given that slow but methodical growth and learning, she was able to step in and take over. As of last year, I didn't just go out and say, oh, I'm going to sell. I gave it to the partner, my former associate attorney, because I trust that she will continue my legacy of taking care of our clients the way they deserve to be taken care of.

[Podcast Host]

So what's your involvement right now? Do you?

[Jinhee Wild]

I am consulting on an administrative and management side. Payrolls, the health care, you know, all of those nitty gritty to just operate the firm. I actually haven't done actual legal work for several years now because I have other people to do it even before I retired. And now that I'm retired, I'm not practicing law, I'm just running the day to day operational stuff.

[Podcast Host]

What have you been doing with your extra time in retirement?

[Jinhee Wild]

Traveling.

[Podcast Host]

Oh yeah. Where?

[Jinhee Wild]

I am actually about to go to Hawaii next week. I was in Cabo earlier this year and you know, so my husband retired at the beginning of this year as well. And it has always been our goal to retire together. So we're hoping while we are still young and able to enjoy it, travel and you know, enjoy ourselves a little

[Podcast Host]

bit more as you look forward, you know, with this new generation in place, how do you kind of see them rising to the occasion of all of the, you know, obviously immigration is so hot in the news right now. There's so much talk about it. What's your hope for them going forward?

[Jinhee Wild]

Well, I am hoping that anyone who is getting into immigration law field will feel the way I did, empathize with the immigrants, going through the struggles for several years long and arduous process and put them in their shoes and be more empathetic, be more responsive, take care of them like the way you would take care of yourself. The flip side is put yourself in the very overworked government officials handling hundreds of cases and make it easy for them to say yes. Organize the file so that they don't have to go through 500 pages to find the evidence that they're looking for. Organize it so that they can see it at the top, what they can find at page number 392. Do it. That way you can get better results.

[Podcast Host]

You're not just filing. You're telling a story.

[Jinhee Wild]

Exactly. And I learned this from my previous work, that it is not just what you say, but how you say it. Right. You have to show that your case is approvable and make it easy for them to say yes. These government officials are very overworked with many, many cases on their desk, and they have few minutes to find what they're looking for. They don't spend hours and hours poring over these files. They can't. They just don't have that capacity. Anything you can do to make it easy for them to find what you're trying to show them will help you in the long run.

[Podcast Host]

How have you been enjoying the Inc 5000? You know, just being here and, I

[Jinhee Wild]

mean, I'm a little bit overwhelmed. We have, what, 2,000 plus of attendees, and these are all the people that have made it. Made it. They're from all walks of life. And I'm just like, oh, my gosh. You know, I'm one of them. I guess I'm at 1129 out of 5000 ranking. I guess I feel very humbled and overwhelmed at the caliber of people that are attending here. And I'm very thankful to Inc 5000 for giving us this opportunity.

[Podcast Host]

Well, we're so glad you're here. And yeah, thanks so much for coming. This was great.

[Jinhee Wild]

And thank you.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, I really enjoyed this.

[Jinhee Wild]

Thank you.