Kellie E. MacDonald

Kellie practices employment-based immigration law, working with employers and employees to develop and implement solutions for short and long-term immigration needs. Her work focuses on temporary employment-based processes, including petitions for H-1B, L-1, E-3, and TN nonimmigrant workers, waivers for J-1 nonimmigrants, including Conrad 30 and Interested Government Agency applications and J-1 recipients of government funding, and employment-based permanent residence processes.

Kellie has particular expertise developing immigration solutions for individuals with extraordinary and exceptional ability in the sciences and business, including O-1 nonimmigrant petitions, EB-1 petitions for outstanding researchers and individuals with extraordinary ability, and EB-2 National Interest Waivers. She provides counsel and support for companies of all sizes on compliance issues relating to Labor Condition Applications, Forms I-9, and immigration issues and considerations arising out of corporate mergers and acquisitions.

Kellie is a frequent speaker on immigration law for the Maine bar and is active in pro bono work, including individual pro bono representation and the firm’s strategic pro bono partnerships.

Prior to joining Pierce Atwood, Kellie worked in immigration legal services at Catholic Charities’ Refugee and Immigration Services in Boston, Massachusetts, and at the American Friends Service Committee’s Immigrant Rights’ Program in Newark, New Jersey.

After graduating law school, she was awarded an Immigrant Justice Corps Fellowship, a competitive immigration law fellowship for new attorneys practicing deportation defense. During law school, Kellie was a student attorney with the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, the oldest student-run legal services office in the country.