Did you use a lawyer during your immigration process?

[bora bora 1]

<EOM>

[almaty 19]

no...i almost did when sanita got her 221 g (with a recommendation to deny)in almaty..but, i figured i make a living out of communciating to my clients and took the consul on..and less than a week, they dropped the 221 g and approved the visa

sometimes miracles happen

[DakotaK1 1]

If the case is not a difficult one then I say you can do it on your own.

[churipu 4]

[Marilyn. 340]

we used a lawyer that hubby picked out of the yellow pages .... the lawyer was a total waste of time and money...

he got us a bunch of RFE's because he didn't seem to know what he was doing and I constantly had to keep correcting him....

if you are going to use a lawyer I would highly suggest that you get a lawyer that knows what they are doing.....

[shannon65 2]

I didn't use it for the K1. I followed the instructions on here. I think in uncomplicated cases and if the embassy is not of the ones known to be difficult, you can save your money and do it yourself. Lawyers sometimes slow down the process because you have to wait for them to get your paperwork ready. However, the K1 was not approved because of problems on the police record. We require an I601 waiver of inadmissibility. That's far more complicated and for that I did hire a lawyer, not just an immigration lawyer but one with experience in waivers. I could have done this myself too and got it done a lot faster but didn't want to take the chance. Still, I601s require a lot of work from the petitioner, letter writing and researching supporting documents, unless the petitioner is unable to do these things. The lawyer's there for guidance.

[Kazan' Tiger 1]

100% no way.

[milwaukeegirl 0]

The lawyers that I called to get price quotes wanted $500 just for an appointment! That didn't involve any paperwork. I think that everyone on visa journey is so helpful and experienced, that you'll probably get better (and free!) advice right here.

[~krakatoa~ 27]

Yes, for 129F. It wasn't cheap. Ours is not even a special case. It was a very straightforward case said the immigration lawyer. According to him, since we're both single and no kids, both professional and working, everything would be easy. But still, his immigration law office billed us like it was some complicated case. Anyway, no regrets now. We didn't get any RFE's so I'll give him some credit.

Our reasons for hiring the law firm's services was that my husband and I had no clue on how to start a petition, what evidences to gather, we didn't even know our friendship would escalate to marriage. I remember the time when my husband and I were still dating and falling in love, we realized we wanted to be together for all eternity. It struck us that he'd be leaving again and heading back to the States and this sent us to panic mode. We have no idea at all on what to do. We had to sit down and talk it over many times then choices had to be made. I hope you don't mind me taking a trip down memory lane

Anyways, had we known VJ long before, it'll be a different story.

Edited February 5, 2008 by krakatoa

[Dr. Obvious 49]

No. We had no reason to do so as our case was about as straightforward and uncomplicated as it gets.

[Aymerlu 3]

[Yaads 0]

We did but only because I hadn't found VJ and didn't really know it could be done on our own. If I had found VJ before I filed I never would have used a lawyer.

[Nessa 23]

no.

[bora bora 1]

I agree that it's a waste of money, but I see a lot of people paying loads of money for lawyers - so I was just curious.

[CarolineM 0]

No - but we were going to until I found this site.