Kristen Nilsen

Kristen Nilsen is a solo practitioner in Oakland, California, whose practice focuses exclusively on family immigration law. Kristen is an active member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA).

Kristen received her law degree from Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, DC, in 2004. After law school, she worked at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) as an Immigration Services Officer, where she interviewed and adjudicated family petitions, adjustment of status applications, and naturalization applications and resolved case inquiries. She has a unique insight into how immigration applications and petitions are evaluated and uses this experience to better guide her clients through the immigration process.

After leaving USCIS, Kristen worked as an immigration attorney at Lutheran Community Services Northwest and Refugee Women’s Alliance in Seattle, Washington, where she provided family immigration legal services to refugees and low-income immigrants. At Refugee Women’s Alliance, she ran a federally-funded naturalization program, helping hundreds of immigrants to increase their knowledge of U.S. civics and to obtain their citizenship. Kristen stays true to her non-profit background by volunteering at Citizenship Day events, helping low-income legal permanent residents prepare naturalization applications.