The spouse needs a valid work-authorizing status and appropriate evidence before starting employment. An eligible spouse in valid L-2S status is employment authorized incident to that status. Admission or an approved change of status may be relevant to obtaining it. Marriage to an L-1A worker alone does not authorize work.
Coordinate the dependent route with the principal case
Dependent eligibility rests on the principal case, but appropriate filings and travel steps may be coordinated. Ask counsel to confirm the spouse’s eligibility during the initial review, including whether a visa, admission or change-of-status step is needed. If the spouse already holds another status or has an independent employment route, assess that too.
Distinguish looking for a position from the date employment may lawfully begin. Ask counsel to answer one question in writing at the initial review: on the facts as they stand, what is the earliest point at which the spouse could lawfully begin employment, and what has to happen before it. That single answer organises the household's whole calendar, and it is a different answer for a family already in the United States in another status than for one applying from abroad.
Where the spouse holds a professional registration or an independent route of their own, raise it in the same conversation, since an independent basis sometimes arrives sooner than the dependent one and changes the plan entirely.