IN THIS GUIDE · Responding when a United States customer asks for one named employee by name
Start with the L-1B eligibility and application overview
Separate the customer's request from the eligibility question
Write down what the customer asked for and why, then set it aside. The classification analysis asks what the individual knows about the organization's own products, services, application, or advanced processes and procedures, and whether the proposed work requires it. A customer's confidence in a person is evidence of a good working relationship. It becomes relevant only where it can be traced back to knowledge that belongs to the employer's own operations. A first review should produce a knowledge map: the product feature or procedure, the internal records showing the worker learned it, the colleagues who can confirm it, and the U.S. task that calls for it. Generic training certificates, tenure, or a client compliment do not answer why that knowledge is material to the proposed work.
Describe the work at the customer's premises precisely
Assignments performed mainly at a third party's site carry specific restrictions concerning who supervises the worker day to day and whether the arrangement amounts to placing labour for hire. Record who directs the tasks, who sets the schedule, whose tools and methods are used, and how the work is priced. This is an area where assessment is genuinely complex, and the honest step in a first conversation is often to route the arrangement to counsel with the facts attached.
Trace the knowledge back to the employer
Explain how the knowledge relates to the petitioning organisation’s products, services, techniques or advanced processes. A customer deployment can provide evidence without the employer owning every tool used. Separate expertise in the employer’s service from ordinary familiarity with the client. For work primarily at an unaffiliated site, counsel must also examine supervision and whether the placement is principally labour for hire. A client’s preference alone does not resolve those questions.
Fix the contract language and the review trigger
Read the statement of work alongside the proposed duties and actual supervision. If they disagree, establish which account is accurate before anyone signs an immigration description. A change in wording does not cure an impermissible underlying arrangement. If the business genuinely changes the delivery model, document that change. Agree who will seek review if the customer later alters the scope, supervision or location before the transferred employee undertakes materially different work. Hypothetical example: an industrial enzyme manufacturer is asked to send the employee who calibrates its proprietary fermentation-control sequence to a customer's facility. The decision is whether the statement of work leaves the manufacturer directing the specialized assignment, rather than supplying a worker to fill the customer's ordinary role. The contract, weekly work plan, and escalation path are the records to test before filing.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.