L2 Visa and Work Permit

[nagammais]

My spouse is here in L1. I am in L2 visa. My Visa andI94 expires on Feb 8th.After my arrival to USA in L2, I applied for workpermit (by submitting my I94,visa documents and myspouse L1 documents).

I received work permit with theexpiry date of my I94 expiry date, which is Feb 8th2005. Now I am working with that work permit now.
I got Social Security number too.

My visa, I94 and my work permit (all) expire on Feb8th 2005.
I have applied for My I94 extension since my spouse's I94 expires in 2007. I expect the approval letter from INS by February first week and with that I can stay with that in USA. I hope my I94 extended card would come by Feburary or March.

After that I need to applyfor my new work permit extension after getting new I94 (becauseI94 is needed document for applying the work permit extension).

It would take another 2 months to get the new workpermit card.

I have few questions.

Can I work legally after Feb 8th even though my work permit is expiring on Feb 8th. If not, Can I work after applying for the new work permit to INS? Or else do I need to wait till I get the new Work permit to work?

My current work permit is expiring on Feb 8th due to my I94 expiry in Feb 8th. As I am extending my I94 now, can I work before getting extended work permit?

Please clarify if anybody knows answers for this.

Thanks

[csingh]

You need to have a valid work permit to work...so if your permit expires on February 8th and you don't have your new EAD by then, you are legally bound to stop working till the time you get it..