Did you use a lawyer

[Joandjo 20]

Just a quick question to the group. Did you use a lawyer and would you again ?

I did use one. He way overcharged me ( in hindsight). All he did was review our application to see if we made any errors. Looking back at the K-1 process it is so simple and straight forward, knowing what I know no I would do it myself. I don't plan to use a lawyer for AOS.

I didn't use an attorney but we used someone to guide us and paid them. I think it was worth it. We never even considered an attorney.

[Mhayonaise 14]

No need a lawyer for us. This site is enough to know the drill

[Penny Lane 8,159]

Nope. Didn't need one.

[dindo and patty 20]

We were fortunate enough to know someone who had gone through the process and also referred us to this wonderful site.

After doing our own reading and research, we were confident enough doing it ourselves. It also helped that we did not have

a complicated petition.

It is really up to the couple's capability and underlying circumstances that I think ultimately determines whether to use a

lawyer or not. For us, we just wanted to control the whole process (at least things we had control on) and not rely on anyone

else.

[Alex & Rachel 78]

I'm detail-orientated and our case was about as simple as you can get. No, we did not use a lawyer and we had no RFEs.

[joonphon 7]

No. Don't need a lawyer...

[Heartwarming 15]

Hello! I did not use a lawyer but I think in some cases it is alright to not have a lawyer. It depends if your case is difficult. I almost feel like I should have hired a lawyer because this process is stressful and I could have used some assistance to take a bit of the load off of me and my partner. Overall, I feel that I did a decent job alongside my spouse at preparing the paperwork. Now, just awaiting our NOA2 and then we will see if our efforts were good enough. We did not want to waste money on something we felt we could do on our own just as efficiently.

Edited October 17, 2011 by Funfetti

[awkwardsoul 20]

my fiance has insisted we use a lawyer, even though our case is not complication.

I'm still waiting for the NOA2 (and hopefully no RFEs) but so far:

- took longer to get the paperwork sent, as he had to meet with the lawyer, then send him the information. Then I had emailed my completed forms, then wait for them to go through it, then they emailed it back and forth (we were correcting the errors.. sigh), then I signed and mailed it to my fiance, who then had to mail it to the lawyer, who sent it off to USCIS about 4 days later. So yeah, it added a few weeks.

+ the good thing was on the G-325a on those boxes you can't fit long lastnames/cities and they were able to fix that so it was all typed in instead of handwritten. woooo

[cdneh 3,112]

We had one, for the first part of the K1. Really an utter waste of money, and time. Once he had been paid, he became impossible to get hold of. Funny that. I had not found VJ at that time, but I soon did and it has been the best source of assistance and information.

The lawyer would not communicate with me, only my husband. I was the one doing the paperwork, filling out the forms and lining up the ducks, the one with the questions, but he would only ever respond to my husband, and only by email. And even then, some of what he told us was contradictory to what I was reading here. And what I was reading here turned out to be correct, and he really had no answer for that.

We were unfortunate enough to be one of the first K1's here on VJ selected 'at random' for AP at NVC. The Lawyer had clearly never had a client that this had happened to. There was nothing at the time on VJ about it either. When he finally responded to our emails on the subject, he told us that didn't happen to K1's, and not to worry about it. He said that it was a mistake at NVC, and that our petition were already on the way to the Consulate. Told us we were worried for nothing.

Well, I was pretty sure that was nonsense. My husband rang NVC and spoke to a second tier supervisor at the call center, and was told unequivocally we were in AP. At that point I asked the lawyer for the original copy of the NOA2, which went to him, and once we had that in our hands we never contacted him again. We advised the appropriate parties in writing that we were handling the rest of the case on our own, an not to communicate with the lawyer again, other than to sack him.

I think the only saving grace was that I had been in contact with the Consulate over the police certificate from Canada, and had an ongoing email conversation with them on the delay. My concern was that with the holdup I would need to repeat that. As a result, when the AP business reared its ugly head, they were happy to try and find out what was going on. The Consulate were the ones who advised me it was a new procedure they were starting, and what it all meant. They were also happy to send me packet 3 based on having the AKL #, so I was able to go ahead and schedule the medical while we were still in AP. By the time that ended, nearly 8 weeks after we hit NVC, we were ready and had the rest done up. I was able to get an interview quickly, and although I was not able to get here for Christmas that year as should have been possible, it did all work out in the end.

When time came for AOS I never thought for an instant about getting a lawyer involved. I was fairly sure I could do a far better job myself. That went fine, we were transferred to CSC, and had no problems. Other than that service center suddenly slowing down to a crawl

Now this week I am assembling the ROC package, again on my own. Any information I could ever think to ask is right here. I can get any questions I want the answered in short order. I can join up in the October filers thread and have company while we wait. It's all good!

So I would say unless you have some complicated issue to deal with, or no time at all to deal with the bits and pieces of filing, or just would feel more comfortable using a third party, go ahead and get a lawyer. But if you are a simple straightforward sort of case, you can do it on your own.

[Kehinde 45]

Just a quick question to the group. Did you use a lawyer and would you again ?

I did use one. He way overcharged me ( in hindsight). All he did was review our application to see if we made any errors. Looking back at the K-1 process it is so simple and straight forward, knowing what I know no I would do it myself. I don't plan to use a lawyer for AOS.

We filed our I-130 petition by ourselves. I will never pay a lawyer to fill out papers for something I can do myself. If you can read then you will have no problem.

[SMR 368]

I didn't use a lawyer and haven't heard of anyone who did and was satisfied with the service. Literally, no one. I know the line about how a complicated case may justify a lawyer gets passed around here sometimes, but I'm skeptical on that account as well. A complicated case is complicated and you may have trouble. And a truly excellent and experienced lawyer would be a great help. But given the utter incompetence and run-around that people report from many immigration lawyers in completely routine cases, I would be frightened to entrust my fate to a lawyer in a more complicated situation. If a lawyer can't file a K-1 for a straightforward case without RFEs, why would you trust him with an overstay case?

[Mestis 1]

We used a lawyer for my AOS and to be honest, i do not regret it. He was a qualified experienced immigration lawyer and even if 3/4 of what he mentioned was already on visa journey, I did appreciate the 1/4 remaining.

I was in a situation that I had to deal with a complicated timing that could have ended up more complicated... It was also not the typical Visa Journey Scenario so people on the boards couldn't help me much. It was great to be able for a flat fee to call an expert and have quick answers to questions. But then, my situation was not typical and I had much more pieces to the puzzle that I would have liked to...

But I will not use a lawyer for my ROC as now my case is pretty straight forward

Edited October 18, 2011 by Mestis

[Robert&Karen 264]

I am tempted to offer my help for $299 on the paperwork from start to finish. You give me all the information once and I fill in the blanks. Too easy!