Ms. Claire Hamano currently represents multinational and start-up companies in employment-based nonimmigrant and immigrant matters before the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), Department of Labor and Department of State. Her legal career has primarily focused on the practice of U.S. Immigration and Nationality Law, with a background in both employment-based and family-related matters. Prior to joining Tafapolsky & Smith, Ms. Hamano was the senior associate attorney at Gotcher Law Group, a business-focused immigration firm located in Sherman Oaks, California. Prior to that, Ms. Hamano was engaged in conducting comparative legal research and writing at the Kyoto Comparative Law Center (KCLC), a renowned academic legal research institute and think tank located in Kyoto, Japan where she simultaneously served on the editorial committee for the Matthew Bender publication, "Doing Business in Japan."

Ms. Hamano is a graduate of California Western School of Law (CWSL) where she received her Juris Doctorate cum laude in 1998. While attending law school, Ms. Hamano was a staff editor/writer for the CWSL Law Review/International Law Journal and received several academic awards and distinctions, including the American Jurisprudence Award in Immigration Law. Ms. Hamano also holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from the University of California, Davis. While at U.C. Davis, Ms. Hamano was a member of the Prytaneans Women's Honor Society and Golden Key National Honor Society.

Ms. Hamano is a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), licensed to practice law in the State of California, and is also admitted to practice before the U.S. District Court, Central District of California. She is also fluent in spoken Japanese.

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