Elena Ashford

Elena is the leader of our immigration law group. She practices exclusively in the area of immigration law. Being an immigrant herself, Elena understands the importance of providing meaningful support to businesses and individuals with their immigration and border-crossing needs. Elena offers a full range of Canadian business and personal immigration services, including permanent residence, citizenship, work permits, study permits, visitor visas and criminal rehabilitation and Record Suspension (‘Pardon’) applications.

During COVID-19 pandemic, Elena has been providing border-crossing advice to foreign nationals on daily basis and has been helping family members to reunite in Canada. She has been assisting Canadian businesses to expand during the pandemic by advising on immigration regulations relating to hiring and retaining temporary foreign workers.

Elena offers a limited scope of U.S. immigration services, which includes spousal sponsorships, intra-company transfer work permits and U.S. Waiver applications.

Elena moved to Canada in 2008 from Moscow, Russia where she obtained a Russian law degree with a Specialist in International Law designation. She received Masters of Arts in History from Western University, Immigration Consultant Certificate from Humber College and Juris Doctor from University of Ottawa.

Prior to joining Siskinds LLP, Elena held a Review Counsel position at a legal clinic at Western University, Faculty of Law, supervising law students in criminal defence cases and aiding international students and postdoctoral fellows to immigrate to Canada. She also worked in affiliation with several law practitioners assisting in complex criminal and immigration matters.

Elena is a proud Londoner who believes in a culturally diverse community. She maintains strong ties to a number of local organizations, such as Community Legal Services at Western University and Cross Cultural Learner Centre.

Elena is fluent in Russian language and offers immigration services in both Russian and English.

Efficient, communicative, and organized
Elena Ashford was recommended to us by Mary Lou Brady and was really wonderful. We contacted Elena initially from the States and had a couple conversations with over the course of more than a year. Angela Belair was our day-to-day contact, and she was also phenomenal. They were exceptionally efficient, communicative, and organized. A real joy to work with, and made what could be a very stressful, fraught process smooth and stress-free.- T.B.

Professional and attentive
We want to thank Elena Ashford and Angela Belair at Siskinds LLP who helped us with our immigration. They were very professional and attentive to details with our case. Elena and Angela replied to our concerns in a timely manner. We can recommend them as a great immigration lawyers. - V.O.

Helped me through the immigration process.
Angela [Belair] and Elena helped me through the immigration process and made the whole application very straight forward. They also had time to answer any questions I had and were very quick to reply. – G.S.

Could not be happier with their assistance.
Siskinds LLP has provided me with assistance with my immigration into Canada. They have done an exceptional job. They helped me prepare and reviewed all the paperwork necessary for the application and submitted everything timely on my behalf. Everything went out very smoothly. Their guidance was excellent.
I could not be happier with their assistance, and I am glad to recommend them. [Elena Ashford and Angela Belair] - G.G.

Thank you for all the great work!
Elena and Angela [Belair] have been immensely useful in my application towards permanent residence. Elena's first hand experience as an immigrant brings out a compassionate approach towards her clients, and she is great with her knowledge of the processes involved. She takes a great initiative in ensuring that her clients stay on top of the documents and provides incredible insights into how the application would be viewed by the immigration offices. My application had come to a stand still, and after reaching out to her, it proceeded to approval within a month. Thank you to Elena and her team for all the great work! - C.P.

Professional and successful.
I was at first hesitant about hiring a lawyer for my work permit and immigration applications. However, I don’t regret it at all. Elena and Angela have not only been professional and successful in their mission, but they also have lightened the mental energy put into this long process. I have already recommended their services to one of my friends going through immigration. - D.K.

I've had great experience
Personally, I've had great experience with Angela [Belair] and Elena. They handled everything that had anything with immigration and Permanent Resident application (PR). I still needed to do a lot of stuff myself like getting biometrics, filling in information like last 10 years of travel, family info, work experience and etc. But that isn't a law firm can do for you as a person immigrating. And the best thing is that I didn't need to go through Canadas gov website and look through for the 3 documents I needed to fill in, out of the 1000 other documents. I just cannot imagine spending all that time myself. Would've taken at least 3 months 8 hours everyday. - Z.G.

Russian

In Spring of 2023, Elena was named to the Mondaq Thought Leadership Awards in Immigration for her authorship of the blog post "Parent and Grandparent Sponsorship Program"

• Cross Cultural Learner Centre, Board of Directors Vice Chair and Policy Committee Chair
• Pro Bono Students Canada, Western Law, Project Supervising Lawyer 2022-2021

• Entering Canada as a business visitor: Essential requirements
• IRCC approves new English language test for Canadian immigration
• Current processing times of grant of citizenship and proof of citizenship applications in Canada
• Recent National Occupation Classification changes and the impact on the Express Entry eligibility
• Parent and Grandparent Sponsorship Program
• Coming to Canada on an intra-company transfer work permit
• On-campus employment definition for international students
• As a Canadian permanent resident, can I travel outside Canada without the Permanent Residence Card during COVID-19?
• Canadian border-crossing updates – November 30, 2021
• Sponsorship applications: Parents and Grandparents Program 2021
• Business Essentials – Episode 4: Immigration law, foreign workers, government processing times & more