In the world of corporate law, the “billable hour” is a sacred cow. But for Sampei Omichi, it was the very thing standing in the way of the American Dream.
As an immigrant to the US in the 2010s, Sampei navigated the expensive and confusing world of the U.S. immigration system. As an entrepreneur at heart, he quickly realized the opaque and expensive startup was ripe for tech disruption.
Initially starting Ellis to help student visa holders, the company quickly shifted to broader tech immigration visas when generative AI emerged, realizing its potential to streamline many of those inefficiencies.
Today, his company Ellis is launching a platform that aims to kill the billable hour entirely and make immigration as simple as filing your taxes. For a flat fee of $2,000 per month, Ellis is offering high-growth startups unlimited filings for H-1B, TN, E-3, and J-1 visas.
It’s a bold gamble: Can a law firm actually survive by treating legal expertise like a SaaS subscription?
From “Black Box” to Dashboard
Traditional immigration law often feels like a “black box.” A company pays a retainer, sends a stack of documents into the void, and waits weeks for a response. If a case gets complicated, the “meter” starts running.
Ellis is flipping the script by turning the legal process into a structured data workflow. The Ellis Platform handles the heavy lifting, collecting credentials, routing forms, and flagging edge cases, before a human attorney even sees the file.
“Immigration isn’t just a legal problem; it’s a massive coordination problem,” Omichi says. “We’ve built a platform that feels like TurboTax, but with a licensed attorney standing over your shoulder to ensure 99.4% accuracy.”
Navigating the “$100,000 H-1B” Era
The timing of Ellis’s launch is no coincidence. The landscape for international talent has become increasingly hostile and expensive. Under recent policy changes introduced late last year, certain H-1B petitions for employees outside the U.S. can now carry staggering fees, up to $100,000 in some cases.
In this high-volatility environment, startups can no longer afford the “guesswork” of traditional firms. Ellis has responded by building public-facing tools, like their H-1B lottery odds calculator, to help founders predict costs and success rates before they commit.
“Ellis is an exceptional immigration partner, delivering fast and knowledgeable service. Their platform makes the process easier than anything I’ve experienced in over a decade and a half of hiring international candidates to tech companies,” said Sean McDermot, Chief People Officer at Adaptive Security.
The Economics of Efficiency
How does Ellis offer “unlimited” filings? The secret lies in the 48-hour assembly window. By automating the generation of 200-page filing packets and integrating directly with USCIS APIs, Ellis has reduced the administrative overhead of a visa application by over 70%.
This efficiency allows the firm to offer a money-back guarantee for its non-subscription clients, a rarity in a profession where you usually pay even if you lose.
The Investor Verdict
The venture capital world is betting heavily that the “AI Law Firm” is the next major category in Enterprise SaaS. Ellis is backed by a “who’s who” of tech investors, including Kindred Ventures, 20VC, and Will Smith’s Dreamers VC.
For these investors, Ellis isn’t just a law firm; it’s an infrastructure play. If Omichi can prove that a subscription model works for immigration, the same logic could eventually be applied across legal verticals.
“We believe the world’s best opportunities shouldn’t be limited by geography,” says Omichi. “If we can make the border invisible to a talent seeker, we’ve won.”
Companies can try Ellis today at https://www.ellis.com/.
