Problem with Immigration Lawyer - Advice needed!

[mox 298]

It may not hurt to use a throw-away email account to contact him. Act like a prospective client wanting to throw gobs of money at him, and see if he responds. If he does, then at least you know for sure that he's dodging you.

When he does reply, don't reply back. Just print and keep a copy of the email you sent and the email you received. Resist the temptation to email back "haha caught you scumbag." All you're doing is verifying that he really is there and is ignoring you. It could help in a case against him.

[Beauty for Ashes 257]

Update - still no contact from the lawyer after 16 days, thus I have started taking action.

1. I sent two certified letters - one to his PO box and one to the address he has on record with the State of Pennsylvania telling him he is fired and requesting that he return my K1 petition supporting docs and my retainer.

2. I contacted the Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania to find out how to file a complaint against an out-of-state attorney (Alex lives in GA but is registered in PA). The complaint goes in the mail tomorrow.

3. I contacted my credit card company for help with a charge-back.

4. And I have started regathering all the K1 petition supporting documents.

Unbelievable that this lawyer took my money, then he spent maybe an hour to cut and paste from the info I sent him electronically to create drafts of the I-129F and G325As, and after I sent a big package to him of K1 supporting docs he disappeared off the face of the earth. What a mess. I am not happy and my fiancee is not happy.

But thankfully I found the VJ site and no longer need a lawyer.

Something must have happened to him because he is my attorney too and I get no response either.... You need to pm me. He disappeared around Feb 18 .. He may have been in a car accident or something because I have not heard from him either... Something happened because this is totally not like him

Since I need an IMBRA waiver for my K1 petition I thought I needed an immigration lawyer. Thus I did some research and talked to several and hired Alex Halow (www.k1fianceevisas.com). I also checked with the State Bar where Alex is licensed to see if he had any complaints.

My initial interactions with Alex went well with rapid turnaround on draft I-129F and G-325A's. But I sent a large package of documents to Alex more than 2 weeks ago and all communications from Alex have stopped. He doesn't answer email messages and he doesn't answer my phone calls.

Thus I have decided to proceed without a lawyer using advice from this forum.

However, I need to get my file of supporting docs and photos back from Alex and he doesn't reply to email messages or phone calls. I am totally frustrated as this will put additional delay on an already lengthy K1 visa process.

Does anyone have advice about what I can do? What legal recourse do I have?

Thanks in advance

He has all my original docs from Algeria and I have not been able to get him on the phone. I think something happened . This is not like him at all and he has already been ok abut answering.... I think something happened.... Were the letters signed for or picked up? I am having a problem with getting in touch with him as well

[colombia8t 0]

Update - last night I talked with another one of Alex's clients who was also having similar problems contacting Alex. But she said that Alex had been her attorney for a year and she said he was a good lawyer and this was the first time this had happened to her. She has also been trying to get in touch with Alex and was surprised that she was having problems contacting him as he had been her attorney for a while. She thought something had happened to Alex and had called called the police in his town.

But then today I finally received a call from the lawyer. Alex apologized and said that his wife had a baby which is why he has been unavailable. He offered a discount or to refund my money and return my docs. I will talk with my fiancee to decide if we still want to use a lawyer.

[Bernie4Bien 0]

Hopefully you will have your docs back now that you are in contact with him again.

There is a lot of information available here in VJ that will guide you in your process. The best advisers are those people who had gone through the process themselves and actually experienced it.

Good Luck!

[Beauty for Ashes 257]

Update - last night I talked with another one of Alex's clients who was also having similar problems contacting Alex. But she said that Alex had been her attorney for a year and she said he was a good lawyer and this was the first time this had happened to her. She has also been trying to get in touch with Alex and was surprised that she was having problems contacting him as he had been her attorney for a while. She thought something had happened to Alex and had called called the police in his town.

But then today I finally received a call from the lawyer. Alex apologized and said that his wife had a baby which is why he has been unavailable. He offered a discount or to refund my money and return my docs. I will talk with my fiancee to decide if we still want to use a lawyer.

He contacted me daily and is finishing up my final packets. I am drained...i just need this over with.Its been a long long long year...and i am pregnant to boot.....not easy...........not easy at all

[rebeccajo 14]

Update - last night I talked with another one of Alex's clients who was also having similar problems contacting Alex. But she said that Alex had been her attorney for a year and she said he was a good lawyer and this was the first time this had happened to her. She has also been trying to get in touch with Alex and was surprised that she was having problems contacting him as he had been her attorney for a while. She thought something had happened to Alex and had called called the police in his town.

But then today I finally received a call from the lawyer. Alex apologized and said that his wife had a baby which is why he has been unavailable. He offered a discount or to refund my money and return my docs. I will talk with my fiancee to decide if we still want to use a lawyer.

Well, that's not a great excuse, but....

Since he offered you a discount, personally I'd take him up on that and stick with him.

[mox 298]

Since he offered you a discount, personally I'd take him up on that and stick with him.

I think just the opposite. It's a good excuse, but there's ZERO excuse for him not making some kind of arrangements to at least return calls. What would have happened if you REALLY needed him and time was of the essence? I would take him up on his offer to refund your money.

And personally I would highly consider doing it yourself. Unless you really feel like your time is too valuable to put a day into doing the research, or if your case has some non-standard qualities to it, or if you just don't feel like you can fill out a few government forms (they're not that hard, honest!), go the route that the majority of VJ members have gone and do it yourself. We're here to answer your questions if you have any.

[marryme 0]

Wow.. sounds like a very big problem.. I feel for you.. Good luck with the lawyer stuff..

If you have copies you can still use it. Just explain to the USCIS that you don't have the originals any more that your lawyer is out of contact and you never heard from him agian.

Edited February 29, 2008 by marryme

[Steven Shirley 0]

Since I need an IMBRA waiver for my K1 petition I thought I needed an immigration lawyer. Thus I did some research and talked to several and hired Alex Halow (www.k1fianceevisas.com). I also checked with the State Bar where Alex is licensed to see if he had any complaints.

My initial interactions with Alex went well with rapid turnaround on draft I-129F and G-325A's. But I sent a large package of documents to Alex more than 2 weeks ago and all communications from Alex have stopped. He doesn't answer email messages and he doesn't answer my phone calls.

Thus I have decided to proceed without a lawyer using advice from this forum.

However, I need to get my file of supporting docs and photos back from Alex and he doesn't reply to email messages or phone calls. I am totally frustrated as this will put additional delay on an already lengthy K1 visa process.

Does anyone have advice about what I can do? What legal recourse do I have?

Thanks in advance

WOW, I have remained silent on the subject of lawyers......but......I feel I was royally screwed by Holms and Lolly http://www.fianceevisas.com/ ..... I contacted them way before I knew anything about VJ. I thought I needed an attorney because my fiancée’s birth cert and Phil passport have errors on them. Additionally, her son's BC's have errors as well. Not knowing anything about the process of getting the errors corrected and feeling as though we simply may not be able to do so, I contacted them. I told them in the very first contact and in repeated contacts about the inaccurate documents. I asked them if "they" could make it work to get my fiancée’s visa. Their repeated "yes...no problem...we can handle it" types of responses all lead me to believe “they” could take care of that problem for me......BUT....after I hired them they avoided answering questions about the errors for several weeks and then finally told me "I / my fiancée" would have to obtain corrected documents for them.....As far as I am concerned they deliberately mislead me to get my money. I never would have hired them if I knew I was still going to have to get the documents for them. I was lead to believe they could use their lawyer magic to legally explain the situation so that the documents I had could be used. Since they would not / could not do that, I requested they stop all processing of our K-1 application and send all documents back to me. They ignored me.

BUT - direct answer to your question...I filed a complaint with the better business bureau http://welcome.bbb.org/

You will need to file through the office that is closest to the attorney’s office....but you will likely be able to find their website and file online.

Guess what! I got back all my documents! HOWEVER, I am still in the process of complaint over my requested refund - they had not yet filed the application and I found several errors in the forms they were planning to file, which of course I corrected. The worst error was that they were going to use an affidavit I had sent to them. I told them that it affirmed that the various documents which did not entirely match did refer to the same person. That is what my fiancée had told me. I didn't read it carefully since I figured I was paying a lawyer to "do it right". What a TOTAL joke. When I did read it carefully, it states that her birth cert is correct and it is the other documents that are in error....completely wrong....and since I sent them the exact errors and what the correct information should be, clearly they never bothered to read the affidavit to see if it was correct!! In my opinion lawyers are a HUGE waste of money. The ONLY thing they seem to do is fill in the forms and mail them for you.....anyone smart enough to use this site well is clearly intelligent enough to fill in blanks with the requested info!!! Currently, I have filed a complaint with the CA bar association but have not yet received a response. I may not get my money back, but I want to leave a mark on their record to warn other trusting souls looking for help to bring the love of their life home.....to me they just used my fears and desperate desire to be with my fiancée to trick me out of $2300 for nothing!

save your money and use the wisdom of the good people on this site!! Of course when we finally is approved for the K-1 and she is here then I can be certain lawyers are not needed....but considering they were planning to submit contradictory and inaccurate info....I am pretty sure I made the right choice!

[bora bora 1]

I'd take the money and run too....

I've heard SO many horror stories about lawyers - thank God we didn't get one (nor ever thought of it).

My husband has his GC and we never received even an RFE.

[mox 298]

I'd take the money and run too....

I've heard SO many horror stories about lawyers - thank God we didn't get one (nor ever thought of it).

My husband has his GC and we never received even an RFE.

My advice to take the refund isn't against lawyers in general. I think there are good reasons to have them, especially when there are special circumstances in a case, or if the filer feels that hiring a lawyer would be a better use of their own time. You never hear about the success stories, so I expect that for every horror story there are hundreds of success stories. But for anyone looking to save money, and doesn't mind doing a little research, a lawyer is unnecessary for K visas most of the time.

[Tsup2 0]

I had a problem with my attorney not responding to my communication via phone and email. I simply sent him an email that said "State Bar Complaint" in the subject line and he called me five minutes later.

[cjindia 0]

I feel that you should get your refund. It may seem like a daunting task but VJ will help you the whole way. There are sample forms and if you dont know something just ask.

All the lawyers do is fill out forms, they still require you to gather all the data etc. The forms are actually not too hard. I had an attorney and he messed up so bad and he had a i dont care attitude, after the NOA2 came. I didnt even ask him to fill out the support docs or help me. It isnt worth it.

[colombia8t 0]

I followed up with my fiancee and we decided to proceed without a lawyer. I received the K1 supporting docs back from the lawyer on March 1 and a full refund today March 8. We will proceed using advice from the visajourney.com site.

[DA BOMB 1]

It's a shame you have to deal with this - I needed an IMBRA letter for my K1, did it all myself with example letters from this site and was approved no problem. Get on this guy's tail before you lose everything - then do a credit check, its risk for stolen identity if you ask me.