Attorney Biography
Lincoln Stone is a Certified Specialist in Immigration and Nationality Law, State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization. Mr. Stone’s immigration law experience started in 1987 when he served as a Trial Attorney with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.
Mr. Stone is recognized as a leader of the immigration bar in the complex and specialized EB-5 immigrant investor practice specialty, with more than 28 years of continuous experience, including representation of investors and counsel to U.S. groups raising EB-5 capital, as well as litigation, expert testimony, research and scholarship, policy and legislative work, and leadership of educational conferences. Mr. Stone’s success includes representing more than 4,000 investors in the EB-5 investor visa category, and aiding dozens of his U.S. business clients in raising more than $5 billion for more than 200 different jobcreating enterprises through the EB-5 investor visa program.
Mr. Stone is responsible for creating, planning and editing all four editions of Immigration Options for Investors & Entrepreneurs, the preeminent practice book for attorneys representing entrepreneurs, EB-5 investors, and groups raising EB-5 capital. Mr. Stone also is Editor in Chief of the Regional Center Business Journal, the publication of the EB-5 industry trade association. Long before the EB-5 program was widely known, over a five-year period, Mr. Stone designed, organized and directed the seminal EB-5 investor visa conferences held throughout the country. He received two President Commendations from the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) for leadership and advancing EB-5 investor visa practice; created and served as the Conference Program Chair for five of AILA’s National EB-5 Investor Visa Conferences; and served more than a decade, and five years as Chair, of AILA’s EB-5 Investor Visa Committee.
Mr. Stone has published more than 50 articles on subjects within the practice area of entrepreneur and investor immigration, many of which cover intersections with the disciplines of litigation, sanctions, economics, worksite compliance and securities law. Mr. Stone also has been the invited speaker on investor and entrepreneur topics at more than 100 events, including those sponsored by AILA, the City of Los Angeles Economic Development Forum, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman Office, Council of Development Finance Agencies, National Council of Entrepreneurial Tech Transfer, University of Notre Dame Law School, University of Southern California Law School Real Estate Conference, University of North Dakota Center for Innovation, University of San Diego International Tax Conference, and The Hospitality Law Conference.
In 2005, Mr. Stone co-founded a full-service immigration law firm in downtown Los Angeles. Stone Grzegorek & Gonzalez LLP is a unique immigration law service provider with more Certified Specialists than any other law firm and nationally-renown experts in immigration cases involving investors, entrepreneurs, worksite compliance, universities, scholars, high tech, emerging firms, attorney ethics in immigration law practice, employment-based immigration, asylum, federal court litigation, consular practice, and deportation defense.