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Do-it-all Knous helps clients navigate immigration system

Do-it-all Knous helps clients navigate immigration system

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Kateri Knous - Paralegal - Quarles & Brady
Kateri Knous – Paralegal –
Quarles & Brady

Kateri Knous never intended to work in the law.

Rather, Knous, who already had a bachelor’s degree in business from Mount Mary College when she moved to San Francisco, signed up with a staffing agency that placed her at a boutique firm specializing in immigration law.

“I was working in the HR department and heard they were looking for a legal assistant,” said Knous, a paralegal at Quarles & Brady. “I enjoyed the people I worked with and asked if I could apply.

They said ‘yes’ and I guess the rest is history.”

When she moved back to Milwaukee, Knous brought her experience in immigration law to Quarles & Brady. She now specializes in helping with large and small companies, as well as families, immigration-related matters.

“The two biggest categories I deal with are green cards and temporary visas,” she said. “I spend a lot of time filling out paperwork and keep information up-to-date, as well as keeping clients informed about what is going on.”

Immigration law is complicated and clients can find themselves waiting a long time for green cards, Knous said. “Most of the reason for the delay is because the government is backed up.”

Beyond her paralegal work at Quarles & Brady, Knous helped put in place a new case-management, forms-preparation, and project-workflow systems and more. After helping to select the new systems, Knous helped with the migration of data.

“When ‘D-Day’ came to flip the switch and the IT provider doing the work had not sufficiently prepared, Kateri spent a good part of a weekend redoing the work,” said Grant Sovern, a lawyer at Quarles & Brady, who supervises Knous’ work. “Kateri wants to find ways to work better because she is part of the team and has an ethic that drives her work for excellence.”

Since the new system went online, Knous has become an in-house troubleshooter and system expert.

“I’ve added that to my heavy caseload,” she said, “but I enjoy all parts of my job, especially working with clients and helping them as they look to work and live in America.

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