Manifest Law recruits sitting AILA president to lead immigration strategy

Manifest Law, the AI-native immigration firm built on Manifest OS, announced that Jeff Joseph — the sitting 79th president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association and former partner at Berry Appleman & Leiden — is joining as President of Immigration Strategy while continuing to serve out his AILA term (Yahoo Finance/Business Wire; Law360 Pulse). The hire is a significant credibility signal for AI-native legal services: AILA represents roughly 18,000 immigration lawyers, making Joseph one of the most visible incumbents in the practice area to publicly align with an AI-first model rather than treating it as a threat. It follows Manifest OS's $60 million Series A in April 2026 at a roughly $750 million valuation, positioning the company to combine institutional legitimacy with technology-driven delivery in a practice area — corporate immigration — long characterized by high-volume, process-intensive work well suited to automation (Global Legal Post). For New Law operators, the move illustrates a maturing talent strategy: rather than recruiting purely from technology or legal-ops backgrounds, AI-native firms are now attracting sitting bar-association leadership, which could accelerate mainstream acceptance of the model among traditional practitioners and clients alike.