Ellen Freeman was a young single mother when she emigrated from the former Soviet Union in 1993 and settled in Pittsburgh with help from local resettlement services. “I come from a culture that supports women in their professional lives,” she says. Six years later, after her remarriage and the birth of her second daughter, she’d earned two graduate degrees and had a bright future in law. Now a partner at K&L Gates, Ellen specializes in employment-based immigration issues. She has a clear perspective on the refugee experience, because she’s lived it herself.