Biography

Mr. Ben Hamou, a licensed Canadian attorney and foreign legal consultant in New York in the Business Immigration Group of Seyfarth Shaw LLP, manages the Firm’s Outbound Business Immigration product lines. His practice focuses exclusively on Canadian and other foreign country immigration issues. Mr. Ben Hamou assists organizations with securing temporary and permanent statuses for their employees in Canada and in other foreign countries.

Mr. Ben Hamou is experienced in handling high-volume cases and negotiating agreements with senior foreign immigration officials at ports-of-entry, visa offices and pre-approval units to streamline the immigration process.  He maintains extensive contacts with key senior immigration officials. He has conducted numerous conferences and seminars on Canadian business immigration in Canada and the U.S. 

His broad base of knowledge and experience with Canadian immigration includes understanding the Business Visitor category and the narrow definition of business meetings, securing pre-approvals for work permits and dealing with Temporary Foreign Worker Units across Canada.  He regularly counsels clients regarding the flexibility of the Canadian immigration system, the Federal IT Worker Program, the Labour Market Opinion process, Canada as an alternative to the H-1B cap in the U.S., NAFTA work permits, the consequences of past criminality and waiver of inadmissibility to Canada, permanent residency and its advantageous and innovative point systems, the Quebec specificity, and Canadian citizenship and residency requirements.  He has extensive experience filing a full range of temporary and permanent immigration applications with Citizenship and Immigration Canada, Canada Border Services Agency, Human Resources and Social Development Canada and Service Canada.

Mr. Ben Hamou is a native French speaker, is fluent in English, and also speaks Spanish at the advanced level.

*Not admitted to practice law in the New York State Bar.

*Only admitted to practice in Quebec, Canada.

Education

B.C.L , McGill University, with distinction (2001)

LL.B, McGill University, with distinction (2001)

B.B.A. HEC, with great distinction (1997)

Admissions

• Quebec, Canada*
  

• Licensed as Legal Consultant in New York