"I'm half-Chinese and half-Japanese, and as the voice of victims in the area for 17 years, it was hard for me to learn and observe that people were being taken advantage of in this particular field," Lee says.

Barely four years in business, the Asian-owned and -operated law firm has expanded into a larger office 20 floors above its original location to accommodate the spike in EB-5 cases. EB-5 is a US investment programme granting permanent resident visas to foreign investors and their dependents. To qualify, applicants must be able to invest in a project in the US and create at least 10 jobs locally.

Lee & Lee assists clients, mostly Chinese nationals from Hong Kong and the mainland, in navigating the experiential and language challenges present in the American legal system. "There are very few law firms like us," Lee says. "Our goal is to educate our clients so they can empower themselves to make sound decisions."

Composed of professionals with public-service backgrounds, Lee & Lee does not cut corners. Investor-clients choose the firm despite its tedious processes because of its 100 per cent success rate on EB-5 applications. US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has approved all of the firm's EB-5 petitions to date.

"We're very meticulous and demanding, but the outcome is we get very favourable feedback from the USCIS on the applications," Lee says. "We do it right from the very beginning, and we don't leave clients scurrying to get things done in the end."

Confident of projects associated with the American Dream Fund and Washington state-based EB-5 developer Path America, Lee & Lee guides investors as they assimilate and set up businesses in the US through honest dealings and uncompromising representations.