can lawyers help a visa come faster

[lucyrich 20]

Sometimes a lawyer can avoid having the case slowed down.

If you read around here long enough, you will see people posting about RFEs and other complications they have that could have been avoided if they had known in advance about the problem areas. Some of these people would have had a faster route through the system and perhaps even saved money and time if they'd hired a good lawyer to prepare the case correctly the first time. Alternatively, if they had educated themselves well enough to prepare their own case before they just filled out the forms and mailed them in, maybe that would have achieved the same speed-up.

A properly prepared case done by the couple themselves will go through the system as fast as a properly prepared case done by a lawyer. The lawyer doesn't have access to special shortcuts. And as others have pointed out, there may be a few days' delay as paperwork has to get through the lawyers office instead of going straight between you and the USCIS.

An improperly prepared case done by a lawyer will get messed up and slowed down as badly as one improperly prepared by the couple themselves. The hope is that, with the lawyer's training and experience, it's less likely the case will be improperly prepared. I suppose that's usually, but not always, the case.

One problem is that, it's hard to know a good lawyer from a bad one. So it ends up that you almost have to learn all about the laws and procedures yourself anyway. You can find the info here, if you're willing to sort through it all. By the time you learn enough to quiz a lawyer to tell whether he's any good or not, you've probably learned enough to do your own case properly.

[daboyz 36]

Sometimes a lawyer can avoid having the case slowed down.

If you read around here long enough, you will see people posting about RFEs and other complications they have that could have been avoided if they had known in advance about the problem areas. Some of these people would have had a faster route through the system and perhaps even saved money and time if they'd hired a good lawyer to prepare the case correctly the first time. Alternatively, if they had educated themselves well enough to prepare their own case before they just filled out the forms and mailed them in, maybe that would have achieved the same speed-up.

A properly prepared case done by the couple themselves will go through the system as fast as a properly prepared case done by a lawyer. The lawyer doesn't have access to special shortcuts. And as others have pointed out, there may be a few days' delay as paperwork has to get through the lawyers office instead of going straight between you and the USCIS.

An improperly prepared case done by a lawyer will get messed up and slowed down as badly as one improperly prepared by the couple themselves. The hope is that, with the lawyer's training and experience, it's less likely the case will be improperly prepared. I suppose that's usually, but not always, the case.

One problem is that, it's hard to know a good lawyer from a bad one. So it ends up that you almost have to learn all about the laws and procedures yourself anyway. You can find the info here, if you're willing to sort through it all. By the time you learn enough to quiz a lawyer to tell whether he's any good or not, you've probably learned enough to do your own case properly.

All things being equal. Saying that both the petitioner and lawyer will do the same good job. The petitioner still has to send the information to the lawyer, with the documents. So there is that delay. After that they may sit on it for a couple months without doing anything (as happened to me.) Just by the nature of having to send them the documents, and them preparing them and sending them to USCIS, that is an in-avoidable delay when hiring an attorney.

As to the RFE part of it, most of the people I've seen here on VJ. When they get an RFE, they send in the evidence, and the case is approved quickly after that. They don't put back to the bottom of the pile.

There is also the money they ask for. $1800 in my case. So I paid $1800 to have my case delayed for months.

Like everyone says, it's a personal decision. If I had to do it over again, I would've saved the $1800, as well as the 3 month delay, and done it myself. They pretty much treated me like I was a major inconvience to them,

I wont get into all the mistakes they made, that thank god I corrected thanks to this website. One of them being to make the check out to USCIS for NVC. Thanks to VJ, I corrected this and made it out to Dept. of State. That was one of 10.

Maybe I was unlucky with my choice of attorney. From what I have seen reading the posts here, I don't think so.

If you can file your taxes, you can go through this process on your own without an attorney. You will always take more care in the preparation, then someone that already has their money, and has no vested interest in having the visa in your SO's Passport.

[Sinergy 3]

Using a lawyer and doing it yourself causes the same amount of time for processing...unless your lawyer mucks everything up with is seen alot on VJ...then your processing time ends up longer