Did you use an immigration lawyer to help with the visa process?

[Der Bücherwurm 1]

I'm just wondering if it's worth it to get a lawyer to take care of the paperwork or if it's a waste of money?

[English Muffin 59]

If your case is straightforward I don't see why you couldn't do it yourself. We did it ourselves and it was relatively easy.

[Saddle Bronc 124]

Due to semantics, multiselections:

• for my own employment-based GC process, I did use an attorney--unfortunately, the wrong one; due to his misfiling the labour-clearance as EB-3 rather than EB-2, I wound up with an 18-month "hurry-up-and-wait" where I had approved I-140 but couldn't proceed to final stage
• For my wife's K-1 petition, no immigration attorney was used directly; but I did have some email exchanges with Jim Eiss, and forum exchanges with Ron Gotcher to avoid pitfalls (admittedly, the VJ Guides would have probably served the same purpose)

[kaffy 2]

Nope, I think they are a waste of time and money. We've been through the visa process twice (once for my husband's Aussie spousal visa, a second time for my US CR1 visa) and both were approved in less than 2 months from filing.

[Benika 1]

We were planning on using a lawyer untill we started meeting with some and I found that I knew more than most of them about the fiance process just from reading here and other places online. Made us loose faith in them (It would have been different if they admitted not knowing stuff, but they gave us the wrong information and then acted like we were wrong when we called them on it/ corrected them)

But in the end we will not know if not using a lawyer was the right choice untill the porcess is complete.

I also want to add that I have nothing against lawyers as a rule. Soon my fiance will be filing for sole custody of his kids and he has found a wonderful lawyer who has been totally helpful already for a very small fee before the process even started. But I think for a basic visa application there is a lot of people who can do it without a lawyer.

[Marilyn. 340]

you don't need a lawyer if your case is straightforward

and if you are going to get a lawyer make sure and do some research on them before hiring them and not just randomly pick someone out of the yellow pages, like my hubby did

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

I did an initial consult with one but he couldn't answer the questions I wanted answers to. So I went it alone. I am USC male.

Are they a ripoff? Bad question. Some are, some aren't. Some lawyers are unscrupulous and some customers are unable to make good use of a good lawyer.

[Bforbarree 4]

I'm just wondering if it's worth it to get a lawyer to take care of the paperwork or if it's a waste of money?

We did it ourselves...it took a some time and research and at times it was SUPER frustrating and very tedious but we did it (with help from VJ ).

I would not say that a lawyer is a rip off...but I would say that they are expensive and in our case a lawyer would have been superfluous...but if I had a boat load of money I would have hired one...as well as a maid to clean my house!

[Completely 3]

I'm just wondering if it's worth it to get a lawyer to take care of the paperwork or if it's a waste of money?

I had a complicated case as I am overseas at all times but I never hired a lawyer. I had Conditional Greencard for 1 yr (without removing condition) and did apply for naturalization, got approved, took the oath, applied the passport and got it, without the help of anyone.. Me and my husband did a lot of reading on the instruction and the process. It was too late when I found visa journey on line.

If I did it, you can all do it, Just take time to read all the instruction and you will never get lost.

Lawyer just read the instructions for you and compile paperwork.. It is a waste a lot of time as it took them sometime to file it in the mail. If you analyze it it does not really help a lot, it is just a waste of money, where you can put that money on filing fees and such.

Edited November 25, 2008 by Completely