Before 2007, immigrant workers could pay their own legal fees to pursue an employment-based green card. Then the Department of Labor changed its rules, requiring employers, not employees, to cover all costs. The consequence: Employers of high-wage workers — tech companies, healthcare corporations, financial institutions — could easily absorb $5,000 to $10,000 in legal fees. Employers of low-wage workers — restaurants, nursing homes, elder care facilities — looked at that same bill and often said no thanks.

Enter Leslie Ditrani. In 2022, after a 30-year career in business immigration law, Ditrani founded Pathway for Immigrant Workers, a nonprofit built on a simple premise: do the work for nothing. “I do what I did for money for free now,” explains Ditrani, a former partner with Chin & Curtis in Boston. “For free” may be a simple premise, yet it implies much more than economics; in reaching a new clientele through the nonprofit, Ditrani is making a powerful contribution whose ripples benefit hundreds of families and their communities.

In four years, Pathway for Immigrant Workers has grown into a six-person mostly volunteer operation, staffed by rotating Northeastern Law co-op students and a board including Northeastern Law graduates. The sole full-time employee is Gia Parker Ottenbreit ’25, whom Ditrani first hired as a co-op student. The team currently serves 140 immigrant beneficiaries and has completed 2,200 assessments. To support staff and overhead, each employer client now pays $1,000 in legal fees — a bargain by any measure. The office also offers know-your-rights sessions for immigrants, assists with asylum applications and partners with other immigration nonprofits.

Ditrani explains that since 2025, there’s been a “massive slowdown because employers are hesitant to start a process they may not be able to complete because of the federal government.” Still, hundreds of thousands of people need assistance, and Ditrani is undaunted. “We think that in three years, we’re going to see positive immigration laws. We just need to keep everyone here and working — as long as we can.”