About Us

- Who we are -

API Law Office, and its name

Founded in San Francisco, API Law Office specializes in U.S. immigration law and serves companies and entrepreneurs to acquire appropriate visa and/or green card in order to establish their businesses in the U.S. API Law Office also serves individuals to acquire family-based green card as well as U.S. citizenship.

The firm name “API” represents the founder’s two passions. First, API is an abbreviation of “All Peoples’ Immigration.” We hope to serve everyone across countries and cultures who strives for their career and life in the U.S. Second, API is also an abbreviation of the tech term “Application Programming Interface” which is a tool/function that enables programmers to create their own applications much more efficiently and easily. We hope to become the API of the complex U.S. immigration system for our clients, so that they can acquire their visa/green card more efficiently and easily.

Our Values

Efficiency: We value our clients’ time and would rather have them spend more time on their business or family than to have them worry about the complex immigration process. Therefore, we strive to make the process as efficient and easy as possible for our clients

Relationship: We believe a truly successful case comes from an open and trusting relationship between the client and attorney. We face our clients with transparency, honesty, and care, with the hope to truly understand the client’s goals and build an application strategy that will be the most beneficial to the client. We strongly encourage our clients to ask any questions and make any suggestions or criticisms so that we can build a strong relationship.

Education: We want to be a resource to everyone who struggles with the complex U.S. immigration system. We offer our first consultation for free with the hope that people can be better informed and make better decisions. We also offer seminars and meetup sessions so that more people can have the opportunity to learn about U.S. immigration system.

The Founder

Born in Shanghai, China, Yan emigrated to Japan when she was 8 years old. After graduating high school in Hiroshima, Japan, Yan came to the U.S. as an international student. Her own immigration experience coupled with her witnessing foreigners’ struggle with immigration status in the U.S. drove her to become an immigration attorney. After graduating from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Yan took advantage of the Optional Practical Training (OPT) system to gain practical experience at an immigration law firm as a legal assistant. After OPT, Yan entered Santa Clara University, School of Law where she worked on various immigration cases with the law school’s affiliated immigration clinic as well as non profit organizations. She also represented a client on an asylum case before the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and successfully negotiated for prosecutorial discretion with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

After graduating from law school and acquiring her attorney license in 2013, Yan began her career as an immigration attorney with a law firm exclusively specializes in U.S. immigration law. As the managing attorney at the law firm’s Silicon Valley branch office, Yan had the opportunity to work with a number of companies and entrepreneurs who were starting their new businesses in the U.S. Getting visas for new companies can be very challenging, but Yan found the joy and passion in serving these clients who strive for success with their own passion and mission. In January 2018, Yan founded API Law Office with her passion in providing immigration services with high quality, high efficiency, and high value.

Yan Li, Esq

License: California

Languages: Japanese, Chinese, English