
J Craig Fong
Download VCard
Phone: (626) 577-8020
Fax: (323) 856-5808
1760 W Cameron Ave
#100
West Covina, California 91790
USA
J Craig Fong has been practicing law for over thirty years. Although his legal career started with large corporate law firms, handling bank mergers and acquisitions, he gravitated toward community-based and civil rights work. He served as Assistant Director of the immigration project of the Los Angeles County Bar Association, Director of the Immigration Project of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern California, and Director of the Downtown Immigration Advocates, a nonprofit project of the United Methodist Church. In the 1990s, he also worked as an advocate for gay and lesbian civil rights as the Regional Director of the national civil rights organization Lambda Legal Defense & Education Fund.
J has had his own immigration law practice in Southern California since 1996. J’s practice is devoted exclusively to immigration and nationality issues, focusing primarily on family-related cases, entry-exit issues, treaty investor and trader visas, intra-company transferees, and hardship and national interest waivers. He also pioneered the counseling and representing of same-sex and non-traditional multi-national families.
Because so many immigration attorneys practice solo, J Craig Fong and Romben Aquino wanted to create a law firm in which two attorneys can consult and advise, especially for difficult or unusual cases. Immigration and nationality law has a become far too complex for one attorney to know it all. The Fong & Aquino philosophy of “two heads are better than one” allows us to strategize and create solutions for problematic cases.
J has also taught numerous Continuing Legal Education seminars, including some sponsored by the Los Angeles County Bar Association, the Law Society of British Columbia, and the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
He is admitted to practice in the State of California and before the Supreme Court of the United States.
J was educated and trained at Yale, the University of Pennsylvania, la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, and the Coro Foundation. J, his husband, and their two cats live in Monrovia and split their time between Southern California and Paris, France.
J.D., The Law School, The University of Pennsylvania, 1981
Boalt Hall School of Law, Univesity of California Berkeley
B.A., Yale University, 1977
RJH Kiphuth Scholar, 1974-1977
Yale-Carnegie Foreign Exchange Program, 1976-1976
Sumitomo Scholar. 1977
Facultad de Filología, Universidad Complutense de Madrid
Certificate in Spanish Studies
Coro Foundation, 1986
Certificate
Supreme Court of the United States of America, 1991
American Immigration Lawyers Association
Member Since: 1998
Los Angeles County Bar Association
Member Since: 1997
Immigration Section
Federal Bar Association
Member Since: 2011
Immigration Law Section
- Lecturer: Best practices for working with GLBT Immigrant clients and representing them before the Government Immigration Legal Resources Center Nov 2011
- Lecturer: Marriage-based immigration and GLBT couples Immigration Legal Resources Center Oct 2011
- Lecturer: Non-working visas Los Angeles County Bar Association 2001 - Present
- Lecturer: Immigration Alternatives for Gay Men and Lesbians Federal Bar Association 2011
- Lecturer: Adoption of Foreign-born Children Academy of California Adoption Lawyers, January 2010
- Closing Keynote: Immigrants & HIV/AIDS: Do you remember the time? US Conference on AIDS 2007
- Lecturer: HIV/AIDS Law & Practice American Bar Association, May 2006
- Lecturer: E Visas and Investor Visas Los Angeles County Bar Association 2004
- Fong, J Craig, "Building Alliances: The Case of the Japanese American Citizens League Endorsement of Same-Sex Marriage." Overcoming Heterosexism and Homophobia: Strategies that Work. Ed. James T. Sears & Walter L. Williams. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. pp. 371 - 379.
- Fong, J Craig, Non-Immigrant Visas: E Treaty Trader / Investor Visas. MCLE Training Materials. Ed. J Craig Fong, Linda W. Lau, & Mark A. Ivener. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Bar Association, 2004.
- Fong, J Craig, "Other Nonimmigrant Visas." Immigration Law Training Course. MCLE Training Materials. Ed. Mary Mucha. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Bar Association, 2008.
- Fong, J Craig, Ed., Investors & Traders: Nonimmigrant and Immigrant Visas (E-1/E-2 & EB-5). MCLE Training Materials. Ed. J Craig Fong, Linda W. Lau, & Wayne Ng. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Bar Association, 2006.
- Fong, J Craig, Ed., HIV and the Legalization Applicant. MCLE Training Materials. Los Angeles: Asian Pacific American Legal Center and Public Counsel. 1989
- Judge, pro tempore,
Superior Court of California, 2008-2011 - Counsel, "Finish the Dream" Citizenship Workshop
California School Employees Union (statewide)
2007 - present
- Strathmore's Who's Who
English, Spanish, French, Japanese