McCown & Evans Response to COVID-19

Dear Clients and Friends,

As a valued client of McCown & Evans, we appreciate the trust you place in us, our people, and our services. Over the past 17 years, McCown & Evans has continued to support our clients despite earthquakes, wildfires, and other natural disasters. You can rest assured we are prepared and that we have contingency plans in place to deal with the range of potential issues that may arise from the Coronavirus (COVID-19).

During the period of the San Francisco Bay Area’s mandatory Shelter in Place order (in place until at least April 7), all McCown & Evans team members are working remotely from their homes. As we are already a paperless office with a cloud-based technology infrastructure, we should be able to continue with the majority of our work-related tasks without interruption. At the present time, delivery services such as Federal Express are still operational, as are the USCIS Service Centers where the majority of immigration petitions are filed. So we are prepared to continue to file paper applications and petitions that the U.S. government requires in most cases.

We continue to closely monitor and adhere to recommended practices around the COVID-19 pandemic from the CDC, the World Health Organization, and local leaders. Our priority is continuing to provide the excellent service you have come to expect, while also taking care of our team members. We appreciate your enduring commitment to us, and we, in turn, are prepared to continue our commitments to you.

In response to the recent outbreaks in the United States, and California in particular, we are taking the following precautions:

  • We are utilizing communication and collaboration tools to allow for remote work by all employees.
  • We have made arrangements to collect our U.S. mail from a post office, which will include government mail relating to immigration filings.
  • We are continuing to finalize all H-1B cap registrations for clients by the 3/20/2020 deadline.
  • We are continuing to prepare H-1B cap paper petitions so that they can be filed as soon as possible after the H-1B cap registration results are released (which should be by 3/31/2020).
  • We are monitoring immigration deadlines and will take necessary steps to ensure that employees remain in valid status and that all filing deadlines are met.
  • We are working closely with our company clients to advise on best practices for I-9, LCA, and PERM posting issues while our clients are also working from home.
  • We have asked our employees to follow the CDC’s top recommendations for stopping the spread of pathogens, including COVID-19.

Thank you for continuing to entrust us with your immigration needs. We wish for you, your families, and your colleagues to remain healthy and safe.

Sincerely,

Kelly McCown & Jeptha Evans

Partners

McCown & Evans LLP