Lawyer or No Lawyer

[li_09 40]

No lawyer.

Anything and everything you would ever need to know about the immigration process, there's a 99.9% chance that someone on VJ will know the answer. Everyone is always willing to help. I love it

[You&Me 8]

I'm a control freak...I would never leave something as important as my future with my husband in the hands of a stranger. I believe the visa process can be done on your own, read a lot, do a lot of research, be organized, make checklist, triple-check everything...

[newoption 1]

My fiancé (now my husband) hired a company (not even lawyers and expensive by the way) to fill out the papers for the K1 and they made a mistake with my two last names: the first last name is now my middle name! Yes, big mistake that I am going to fix thru naturalization. I didn't fix it before just because of all the long waiting at SS, DMV, etc.

After that unfortunate mistake, we decided to fill out the papers by ourselves, and of course, using this wonderful website VISAJOURNEY.COM things were a lot easier!! Thank you, I love this site!!

[prmiami 14]

I hired a law firm to fill i130 petition for my kids, Despite the money they charged, I had to follow up about a month later because my NOA1 was not coming on time, they told me on the phone that I need to be present at their offices for questions regarding my case and they could not tell by phone. Next day I visited them, they sent the package on the day I called. Their explanation was that the paralegal that was working on my case was sick.

Now I got my petition approved, 4 days later of my approval I received the call from a lawyer at their offices telling me that my wife was approved, I replied - the i130 is for my daughter!

she replied - is your daugher married?

-no she is minor.

- Well you need to come to the law firm office and pay $$$ to continue your case, otherwise you will have problems.

I decided not to continue with them cause the person who called me did not have a clue of my case and started asking for money, also tried to scare me.

[JIJourney 96]

Who needs a Lawyer when you have VJ ?

[funkymunky 11]

We attended an immigration group meeting on base with a military employed civilian lawyer, she gave us an info package with the forms and instructions but was not very nice and said we were on our own. We then consulted another military approved immigration lawyer (it was a free consult) and he was very helpful and advised us that we could file on our own and what to do. It wasn't a hard process and I'm glad we didn't end up paying extra for a lawyer.

[J&N071213 57]

I didn't use a lawyer, but someone who knows about this process and does it for a living, the office ended with an "internal fraud", my application sitting on a desk and a hell of a fight to get my money and documents back (the police report did the trick). Thankfully some nice lady by my house took pity and would help me out through the whole process for the cost of the translations. Now waiting....and...waiting...

Who needs a Lawyer when you have VJ ?

Amen for that.

[JIJourney 96]

I didn't use a lawyer, but someone who knows about this process and does it for a living, the office ended with an "internal fraud", my application sitting on a desk and a hell of a fight to get my money and documents back (the police report did the trick). Thankfully some nice lady by my house took pity and would help me out through the whole process for the cost of the translations. Now waiting....and...waiting...

Amen for that.

You definitely get a thumbs up for that! Give me one too!

[Eldridge C. Dange 0]

Normally, we do not require a lawyer for visa, but if there is any issue regarding your name change or something else then you at that situation you have to take some advice from legal adviser.

[Kaori 1]

Our visa journey was a complicated one due to my husbands work situation and other important issues so we used a lawyer. I have to say that although it was very expensive, she helped ALOT and I don't think I would have been able to do this without her.

[NYR_Fan 1]

We didn't use a lawyer, everything you need is pretty much laid out for you with specific instructions.

Edited January 10, 2015 by NYR_Fan

[berber_wife 90]

No lawyer. We had a straightforward case (ie no kids, previous marriages, criminal records, unlawful presence in the US, etc) and VJ is more than enough info for a simple package.

[TimeTravel 78]

I hired an laywer for our I-130 process, and it was really useful as I felt that we had little complicated situation, and I was not well aware about immigration process, so did not want to risk anything, and plus it did cost us only $1000, so price was not bad.

For N-400, I am doing it myself as I know what I am doing.

[vicks5721 18]

nobody else has mentioned it, we didn't hire a lawyer but we did hire a visa company called RapidVisa as we felt unconfident to do it all on our own. We are so thankful we did use a visa company as it took only 3 months for our visa petition to be approved and there were no complication, RapidVisa made it easy to understand what evidence we needed to include of our relationship and they provided all the forms on their website. The forms are filled in on their website and then you just print them off after, which is great as all of it filled in already no worry about mistakes and having to do another form if made a spelling mistake etc. Also it was reassuring knowing they check over our petition to make sure we had everything we needed included before sending it to USCIS for us. Also any time we had questions we could call them on phone or talk on live chat on their website or send them emails which gets answered very quickly, I felt their customer service was excellent and I think the fee is reasonable they charge $375 which is low compared to what a lawyer charges.

We would of done all our petition by ourselves if we had felt sure about it, but in general we are glad we had help from Rapid Visa and we are going to hire them for my AOS for sure.

[YouAndMeForever 1,022]

No lawyer. Why waste money? Plus I love to keep things in my own hands.