 George Finnan has practiced immigration law exclusively since 1974.
Following graduation from law school Mr. Finnan worked as an attorney with an immigration-only law firm in San Francisco from 1974 – 1978. He represented individual and company clients in a wide range of immigration and nationality-related matters, including temporary work visas, Labor Certifications, applications for Permanent Resident status, Immigration Court hearings, and appellate work.
From 1978 – 1993 Mr. Finnan headed his own law firm in Palo Alto, California, serving clients in the electronics and related industries in the “Silicon Valley” near San Francisco. He focused on representing corporate clients in obtaining work-related visas, both temporary (E, H, L, etc.) and permanent, for the companies’ executive, managerial, and professional-level technical employees. Clients included Silicon Graphics, Schlumberger, Honeywell Bull, Zilog, Atari, Oral-B Laboratories (a division of Gillette), Xerox Corporation’s Palo Alto Research Center, Fujitsu, Hitachi America, the Electric Power Research Institute, Amdahl, SRI International (the Stanford Research Institute), and many others.
In South Carolina Mr. Finnan has worked in his own firm in Charleston (1995-2002); as a Member (Partner) in Nexsen Pruet, a large multi-practice law firm that practices in South Carolina and North Carolina (2002-2007); and again in his own firm in Charleston, SC (2007-Present).
Mr. Finnan’s practice is primarily in business immigration, preparing temporary work visa applications, Labor Certifications, Permanent Resident applications, and other immigration-related matters for businesses, universities, hospitals, and individual clients in the Carolinas and around the US. He also handles non-business immigration matters including marriage and family-based applications for Permanent Resident status and naturalization applications. Representative industry clients include Behr America, Inc. (headquartered in Troy, Michigan, with manufacturing facilities in the US and Mexico) and Hubbell, Inc. (headquartered in Orange, Connecticut, with manufacturing facilities in the US, Canada, Mexico, and other countries). Representative university clients include the Medical University of South Carolina, the College of Charleston, and Coastal Carolina University.
Mr. Finnan is a member of the California and South Carolina State Bar Associations, the US Supreme Court Bar, and the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
In addition to teaching a course in Immigration Law at the Charleston School of Law, Mr. Finnan has lectured frequently on immigration law topics at universities (including the University of South Carolina’s Law School and International MBA program, the Medical University of South Carolina, and Clemson University), to organizations (including the South Carolina Bar Association’s Continuing Legal Education Division), and to companies and trade organizations.
He is rated “AV” by Martindale-Hubbell, the highest professional rating available to a lawyer.
Mr. Finnan received his undergraduate degree (B.A. in History) from the University of Florida (Gainesville, FL); while an undergraduate he studied for one year at Schiller College in Germany. He received his law degree from Golden Gate University Law School (San Francisco, CA); while a law student Mr. Finnan worked as a law clerk at the Immigration & Naturalization Service in San Francisco with then Trial Attorneys (later Immigration Judges) Bernard Hornbach and Stuart Shelby, where he was responsible for preparing trial (Immigration Court) and appellate (US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals) briefs.
Mr. Finnan’s international experience includes time spent abroad in Japan and North Africa as a child in a military family (his father was a career officer in the US Air Force), one year of college studies in Germany, and service as a Volunteer in the US Peace Corps, stationed in Iran.
Mr. Finnan is married and has two children; his wife Christine is an Associate Professor at the College of Charleston, his daughter Holly is in graduate school in Chicago, and his daughter Leslie is a Volunteer in the US Peace Corps in Kyrgyzstan. |
