Judeus B. Itutud
Biography:
Judeus B. Itutud is a well-respected attorney at ODLC Law, our member practice firm in Manila, Philippines. Jude has particular focus in immigration, corporate, and international law. Jude is not only an honor graduate of the University of the Philippines, but he also serves as a professor in Philippine Christian University, where he obtained his law degree. Judeus B. Itutud is a valuable member of ODLC Law, and is equally important to our entire International team of Attorneys.
Education:
- University of the Philippines
- Philippine Christian University
Languages:
- Tagalog
- English
Phuong Anh Tran
Attorney
Biography:
Phuong Anh “Anne” Tran is our lead attorney in our HCMC Vietnam office. Ms. Tran specializes in corporate and investment law. She has extensive experience in the Healthcare and Real Estate industry. She has had various positions as in-house legal as well as external legal advisor for risk management issues. Ms. Tran has her law degree from Ho Chi Minh City University of Law. In addition, Ms. Tran has a Real Estate Broker Certificate from Open University, Ho Chi Minh City and is a member of Binh Duong Bar.
Experience:
FV Hospital in HCMC. Ms. Tran was responsible for formulating the legal framework for the hospital and setting up their legal department. She also worked with the Department of Health on issues related to procedures for the operation of the clinic.
TMMC Healthcare. As the Head of Legal and Compliance for TMMC Healthcare, Ms. Tran set up the department and established the legal and corporate framework for the entire company. She managed all investment and governance matters for the company, its subsidiaries and its shareholders. Under her tenure and with her guidance, TMMC transformed into large corporation with a complicated corporate structure involving four hospitals, one clinic and one college. There, she led the Mergers and Acquisitions process, and she negotiated and prepared all M and A documents, financing documents and corporate documents. Ms. Tran was responsible for setting up new companies, changing legal representatives and restructuring the corporate model. She was responsible for drafting and reviewing all contracts. She advised the departments in the hospital on all legal and regulatory issues.
International Business Law (IBL) and Partners Law Firm..Ms. Tran was a legal consultant where she drafted and reviewed all the contracts for the corporation. She advised the company regarding a complete reorganization, including dissolution and change in business and dealt with various registration issues.
Education:
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, Cambridge
- Boston University School of Law, Boston, MA
- The Phoenix High School Of New York
Languages:
- Vietnamese
- English
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Kristi Ngo
Attorney
Biography:
Kristi Ngo is an associate attorney at Schuchert, Krieger, Truong, Spagnola & Klausner, LLP. Her diverse background includes immigration law, family law, criminal defense, and civil litigation. Ms. Ngo received her Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science from University of California, Irvine. She subsequently earned her Juris Doctor from Chapman University School of Law with an emphasis in Advocacy and Dispute Resolution. Furthermore, Ms. Ngo is fluent in Vietnamese.
Admissions:
• California bar
• United States District Court for the Central District of California
Immigration Experience:
• Helped hundreds of families unite through family-based petitions and appellate-related work.
• Has assisted individuals and companies in various employment-based and investment-based immigration matters, including L-1 intracompany transferee visa and EB-5 investment visa.
• Drafts rebuttals, appellate briefs, and motions to reconsider or reopen USCIS decisions.
• Experienced in adjustment of status and consular processing.
• Successfully defended clients before Immigration Court in deportation and removal actions.
• Represented foreign beneficiaries whose United States relative sponsors passed away before receipt of immigrant statuses. Resulted in humanitarian restatement of immigration petitions and green cards for all beneficiaries.
• Advised and assisted foreign beneficiaries on waivers of grounds of inadmissibility based on immigration misrepresentation and criminal history.
Litigation Experience:
• Litigates marital dissolution, paternity, and domestic violence actions.
• Represented spouse in a marital dissolution action involving over a million dollars in assets. Resulted in favorable settlement with permanent spousal support and no reimbursement for Watts charges and Epstein credits.
• Represented owner of national technology company accused of breach of contract and fraud. Resulted in a favorable settlement for less than 10% of damages sought.
• Represented defendant in a conversion action involving high compensatory and punitive damages. Resulted in dismissal of case with prejudice at demurrer stage.
• Clerked for the Orange County District Attorney’s Office, Family Protection Unit.
Bill Marshak
Senior Immigration and International Commerce Advisor
Biography:
William Marshak is a former the United States Foreign Service Officer with a career spanning twenty-one years in the U.S. Foreign Commercial Service and overseas assignments in Shanghai, Taiwan, Ho Chi Minh City, Chengdu, and Hanoi. In that capacity, he assisted U.S. companies to enter and succeed in international markets and worked to further U.S. business and commercial objectives abroad.
Prior to entering government service, Mr. Marshak pursued a career in international agriculture with Charoen Pokphand (CP Group) as general manager of their flagship poultry breeding operation in north China, and later, as Marketing Director for Asia for BETCO Inc, a manufacturer of agricultural buildings and animal husbandry systems.
Mr. Marshak is currently based in Hanoi, Vietnam. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA degree from the University of Washington in Seattle.
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Eliot Krieger
Partner
Biography:
Eliot F. Krieger is a founding partner of Schuchert, Krieger, Truong, Spagnola & Klausner, LLP (“SKT”). Mr. Krieger has over 25 years of trial experience and is regarded as one of the top litigators in Southern California. Mr. Krieger oversees the firm’s international offices, regularly traveling between the U.S., Vietnam, and the Philippines. Additionally, Mr. Krieger has associated and consulted with attorneys and law firms in the Philippines for over a decade on various legal issues from criminal defense to assist in negotiating land deals for Philippine corporations.
Mr. Krieger’s extensive trial experience comes from his years at one of the most prestigious Los Angeles law firms, a major international law firm and as an Assistant United States Attorney. During his time in the United States Attorney’s Office, Mr. Krieger oversaw all federal immigration-related cases for the Central District of California and ran the Los Angeles County Immigration Task Force which coordinated local, state and federal immigration fraud prosecution and assisted immigrants and non-immigrants seeking immigration status in Los Angeles County.
Mr. Krieger has been named to the Southern California Super Lawyers list as one of the top 5% of attorneys in Southern California and has been recognized as one of the Top One Percent of Attorneys in America. He has also been honored by the FBI for his prosecution of fraud and corruption. In addition, Mr. Krieger has been appointed as a Judge Pro Tem by the Los Angeles County Superior Court.
Awards:
Education:
Harvard Law School
Cambridge, Massachusetts
J.D. / Cum Laude
The Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, Maryland
Ph.D., Philosophy
The Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, Maryland
M.A., Philosophy
University of California, Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
B.A. / Magna Cum Laude
Litigation Experience:
- Present high profile politician’s wife charged in Federal District Court with money laundering millions of dollars. Resulted in probationary sentence.
- Represented defendant accused of money laundering and structuring 6 million dollars. Resulted in civil compromise with no criminal prosecution.
- Represented defendant accused of using a false passport and aiding a fugitive by the federal government Resulted in no prosecution.
- Represented defendant accused by the US Attorneys Office of misusing millions of dollars of charity money and money from government grants. Resulted in no prosecution.
- Represented defendant accused of sale of millions of dollars of precursor chemicals to methamphetamines, facing over twenty years under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. Resulted in 3 1/2 year sentence.
- United States Department of Justice: Public Corruption and Government Fraud Section
- Prosecuted white-collar crime. Cases included public corruption, money-laundering, health care fraud, HUD fraud and immigration fraud.
- Prosecuted and tried only case in the Central District that convicted defendant of money-laundering for the purposes of tax evasion.
Trials included:
- United States v. Sorochkin (weapons);
- United States v. Batista (bank fraud, identity theft);
- United States v. Ramirez-Molina (immigration);
- United States v. Boujaoude (passport fraud);
- United States v. Laser Eye Center (health care fraud);
- United States v. Greybor Medical Transportation (fraud, money
- laundering, tax evasion)
- Received award from FBI for Laser Eye Center prosecution.
- Served as Indian Crimes Coordinator and Tribal Liaison for the Central District of California. Coordinated all tribal issues involving the United States Attorney’s Office arising in the Central District of California.
- Served as Immigration Fraud Coordinator
- Headed Department of Justice pilot program designed to effectively prosecute fraud crimes perpetrated against undocumented aliens.
- Served as member of Immigration Fraud Task Force
- Served as chairperson of multi-jurisdictional task force targeting fraud perpetrated by immigration consultants and attorneys. Law enforcement members of the task force included representatives from the United States
- Attorney’s Office—Los Angeles County; the District Attorney’s Office—City of Los Angeles; the California Attorney General’s Office; the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the California State Bar. Full task force also included non-law enforcement groups, including the Mexican American Bar Association, the Coalition for Human Rights, the Asian Pacific American Legal Center and a US Immigration Courts judge.
- International Business Experience
- Worked with local counsel in negotiating several land deals regarding structuring of foreign investment in the Philippines.
- Advised and negotiated real estate deals for various Philippine corporations including:
- Cambridge Real Estate Corporation
- Orsal Development Corporation
- Eco-Alternative Building Concepts Corp.
- Developed and arranged funding for three townhouse complexes near Clark, Philippines
Lectures and Classes:
- White Collar Crime, Adjunct Professor / Instructor, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California
- “Thinking about Thinking: Integrating Law, Philosophy & Science”, Teaching Fellow / Instructor, Harvard Law School, Cambridge, Massachusetts
- Philosophy, Visiting Assistant Professor (Part-Time), University of Maryland at Baltimore County
- “Government Investigations: I-9s, LCAs, and Other Immigration-Related Investigations”, 16th Annual American Immigration Lawyers Association, California Chapter
- “Remarks on Federal Law Enforcement in Indian Country within the Central District of California”, Tribal and State Law Enforcement Summit, Rancho Mirage, California
- Civil Enforcement of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act”, Federal Bureau of Investigation Conference on Gambling. Las Vegas, Nevada
- Rifts Over RFRA: Divergent Approaches to the Free Exercise Clause”, Southern California Philosophy Conference, University of California Irvine, California
- “The Utility of a Philosophy Degree for Lawyers”, California State University, Long Beach Pre-Law Program, Long Beach, California
Published Work:
- “Protected Expression: Towards a Speaker-Oriented Theory”, 73 Denver Law Review 69
- The Court Declines in Fairness: Teague v. Lane”, 25 Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review 184
Other:
- Los Angeles County Superior Court, Judge Pro Tem
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Catharine W. Yen
Attorney, Immigration Section Chair
Biography:
Catharine W. Yen manages the immigration department at Schuchert, Krieger, Truong, Spagnola and Klausner, LLP. Ms. Yen primarily focuses her practice on EB-5 investments and has represented clients from around the world. She has filed hundreds of immigration petitions and has 100% approval rate for filed EB-5 petitions. Ms. Yen also advises on preparing investment offerings suitable for EB-5 funding, developing I-924 Regional Center applications, and counseling Regional Centers and developers on ongoing compliance issues. Additionally, Ms. Yen has spoken at national conferences regarding her EB-5 practice, and she has also co-authored several articles on various EB-5 topics.
Ms. Yen has also obtained experience in a wide variety of immigration matters. Ms. Yen has assisted multi-national companies in business immigration matters, such as Hs, Ls, TNs. Additionally, Ms. Yen accepted a pro bono special Immigrant Juvenile case from Kids in Need of Defense (KIND) and was able to successfully obtain a permanent resident card for the child. Ms. Yen also participated in the Immigration Clinic at the University of Houston where she handled cancellation of removal, asylum, and U visa cases.
Ms. Yen was born and raised in Texas before moving to Los Angeles. She is conversant in Mandarin Chinese.
Education:
- Rice University, Bachelor of Arts in Psychology
- University of Houston Law Center, Juris Doctor
Memberships:
- American Immigration Lawyers Association
- Asian Pacific Bar Association of Los Angeles.
Bar Admissions:
- State of California
- State of Texas
Publications:
- “Permissible and Impermissible Guarantees in EB-5” Co-author, EB5 Investors Magazine (November 2016)
- “Evaluating an EB-5 Investor from a Regional center’s Perspective,” Co-author, American Bar Association, Immigration & Naturalization Committee Newsletter, (March 2015)
- “Immigrant Investor Visas: Emergent Trends Around the World,” Co-author, American Bar Association International Law News Journal” (Fall 2014).
- “A Report on Source of Funds: Perils of the Administrative Fee,” Co-author, EB5 Investors Magazine (Spring 2014)
- “My Regional Center is Approved! Now What?” Co-author, EB5 Investors Blog (January 8, 2014)
- “Evolving Escrow: Navigating Delayed USCIS processing times,” Co-author, EB5 Investors Magazine (Winter 2014)
- “Recent Revocations and Enforcement May Change the EB-5 Landscape,” Co-author, IIUSA (June 2013)
Awards:
- “Top 25 Immigration Attorney of 2017 by EB-5 Investors Magazine”
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