What are some experiences others have had with using a lawyer? Does it make the process faster?

[BethAnn and Omar 42]

$6000 OMG. That is like 3 times the normal amount. I am so sorry. goodness.

Sorry I tried to reply with the quote! Yeah I am kicking myself. His fee was 5000 plus factor in all the visa processing fees and medical fees- we're talking more than 6000. Ugh!! People listen to me. Don't do it!!! Plus I forgot to mention that he held up my i130 for months and then forgot to pay the fees to NVC so our petiton got returned. We lost at least a week there. Bad, bad, bad.

Edited November 5, 2013 by Ryan H

[Rose13 30]

We didn't use a lawyer. Went to see an immigration attorney (friend of a friend) who advised us to do it ourselves. Our case was fairly straightforward except for the fact that even though I am a naturalized Canadian with citizenships for 2 other countries. This lenghtened the process a bit (police clearances and the like). Also , I had previously lived in the US legally as an Australian citizen. Still, the whole process took about 8mths. My advice: you can do it without the lawyer.

[HoussemAnna 20]

who should i be calling everyday about this process ? the USCIS?

[NickD 203]

Well if working on an extremely complex engineering project that pumps your brain 24/7, don't know the first thing about immigration and don't even know where to start or how to even bring a person here. Finding a great one is the way to go. Another factor is money versus time, if low on funds, doing it the hard way may be the only option.

The one I found wrote books on this subject, our agreement was for a flat fee, he would be the teacher, I would be the student. After a brief phone conversation answering questions, this guy didn't BS telling me how great he is. Asked key questions, gave answers, from that told me the best way to bring my girls here and what evidence I needed.

He sent special Acrobat forms, a get of a lot nicer than the ones you download, had choice of fonts and would automatically compress those long Spanish names. We filled all those out, he made corrections, emailed us the final forms for approval then FedEx those same forms of signatures that we FedExed back with all of our evidence.

His fee was $750.00 in advance, $750 balance due when my girls received their green cards. When the USCIS saw his name on the forms, didn't even want to see our original evidence. That was the only really nice interview we had. Learned a lot in that process, when it came to the I-751 and N-400's, said we could to that ourselves. But did check over our forms for no extra charge, also pointed out a couple of errors in those.

Yes, you can really get screwed by attorney's, you don't just walk in, but have a contract that spells out all the details.

[I Love Islam 1]

I definitely agree with everyone, the process isn't any faster with a lawyer. The amount of money you spend on a lawyer, you can be making plans for your next trip to see your love one. I learned a lot from this site, all I did was read, read, read and you'll eventually understand the process in your sleep. Good Luck.

[SandN 0]

We started using a lawyer and he did nothing that good research on my part would not have done. A total waste of money, really. As we experienced, and as previously posted, your case would almost certainly go much quicker without a lawyer.

[Faycel and Renee 30]

Dont waste your time and money on hiring a lawyer. I work in law and have some immigration law experience (my experience is more civil/litigation/personal injury, but knowing a bunch of immigration attorneys and being around a lot of them, even I would not rely on them. This site will give you more insight based on experience more then an attorney would.

Lets just say that at least you will get answers here faster than any attorney has time for.

[Tim M 0]

Completely regret using a lawyer. Absolute waste of time and money, often give incorrect advice and slow down the process by making mistakes on the forms. I am still paying for her "advice" even after paying the flat fee.

[JBW 0]

We used a lawyer for my wife's case, she was sponsored by her USC son. Now she is sponsoring me, as the spouse of an LPR (her son cannot sponsor me, as he is not my son). Using a lawyer will not make any difference to the processing time at USCIS or NVC, but depending on their workload, they (the lawyers) may take longer to complete the forms than if you do it yourself. And you still have to sign them, and mail them back. This time we are doing it ourselves. We got the I-130 accepted with no problem, got that approved after 6 months, and are now waiting for contact from NVC. We have waited nearly 3 weeks so far, and trying to remain patient.

Anyone who is not completely fluent in English, or not confident about dealing with bureaucracy may do better to use a lawyer. The forms and documentation required are complicated, and you have to get everything right. If you decide to do it yourself, you can always call the Customer Service lines to make sure you have all the right paperwork. They are usually quite helpful.

Lawyers generally do not call the authority concerned, they wait for responses to arrive in the mail. I had to call them to let them know my wife's I-130 had been approved, as we checked it every day. NVC then took 3 weeks to contact the lawyers, with the list of documentation required in their part of the process. But the lawyer should know exactly what will be required, and can give you the list prior to hearing from NVC, so you can start work on gathering the documents.

In summary, if you are confident you can do it all yourself, go ahead. If not, it may be worth the cost of hiring a lawyer. I have the advantage of having already done it once for my wife, and feel confident about managing it myself this time.

Finally if you go for a lawyer, try and find one that comes well recommended - they all claim to be experts! You really don't want a bad one, but a good one should be worth the investment. They can't speed up the process, but they can prevent you making mistakes or omissions that cost a lot of time to rectify. NVC can take a month to review your paperwork before they let you know there is something else required.

[Geode 3]

Lawyers are like every thing else in the world - you get what you pay for - but with the added caveat that you need to talk to someone about references. I used a firm in CA for the K1 visa process because of the stories here on VJ from those who did not. I now realize that those stories probably started with not being very very very careful with every dot and cross. A good lawyer will not speed up the process or delay it. All of that is on USCIS. I think someone above said one of the most important things - read read read. Know exactly what is required for each form. Know what mistakes others made. Be organized. I did the AOS and now the ROC for my wife. Well, we did it together - two heads are better than one. Make a working copy. Make that copy perfect. If you have any doubts about your ability or knowledge, ask questions. In the end, if you think you cannot do it, you attorney fees should be less than $2000 for a normal K1 applicaition. If you want to talk to an attorney, try Allan S Lolly & Associates. They did a good job for me and my wife.

[del-2-5-2014 1,339]

Based on what I have read on here, you should only use a Lawyer when you have a complicated filing or perhaps if you just don't like dealing with filing out forms. This process is basically like filing a 1040 albeit one on steroids adn compiling documents.

I did my own K1, time to interview was like 5 months from filing. I also did our I-130, time to US soil ~8 months friom filing. I think those were pretty quick times though it didn't seem so to me during the process.

Good luck.

PS: If you do decide to use a Lawyer please DO NOT take a back seat adn kinda follow along and watch the timelines. It's easy for a Lawyer not to have the same dedication that you may have. After all you're just one of the clients.

[Trisha89 36]

Alright we used a lawyer too! And I can only say the opposite until NOW!!!

The whole process with the lawyer was until now perfect(!), he gave us a link with a password and we were filling everything online! It was very easy for us!!

We send him everything via E-Mail photos the finished forms we were filling out, my fiance was going in his office and had only to sign everything than the lawyer sent everything off on august 9th!!

Sure there was one time I had to send to my fiance signed papers from me but that's it (I send him the signed papers via express Mail expensive but they arrived in 3 days)!

Everything was in order and I can't say anything negative yet! We are still waiting for our NOA2 though, almost 3 months so I wouldn't underline that it makes the process faster!

But I'm really glad we had the lawyer because there were always questions we were asking and he didn't get one time annoyed!

We also wanted to use him because i was getting this year on June 30 in the POE DENIED!And had to fly back to germany!:-C he was very helpful!

We paied 1.500$ for the whole K1 support!

[NickD 203]

Lawyers are like every thing else in the world - you get what you pay for - but with the added caveat that you need to talk to someone about references. I used a firm in CA for the K1 visa process because of the stories here on VJ from those who did not. I now realize that those stories probably started with not being very very very careful with every dot and cross. A good lawyer will not speed up the process or delay it. All of that is on USCIS. I think someone above said one of the most important things - read read read. Know exactly what is required for each form. Know what mistakes others made. Be organized. I did the AOS and now the ROC for my wife. Well, we did it together - two heads are better than one. Make a working copy. Make that copy perfect. If you have any doubts about your ability or knowledge, ask questions. In the end, if you think you cannot do it, you attorney fees should be less than $2000 for a normal K1 applicaition. If you want to talk to an attorney, try Allan S Lolly & Associates. They did a good job for me and my wife.

My flat fee for $1,500, well was some extra for FedEx charges, would have had to pay that anyway. That not only included the visa to the receiving the conditional card stages, but was for two people, not just one.

Thought this post was about giving experiences, not giving advice. Some were good, some were very bad, and can't even begin to tell you how your experiences would be. My crystal ball has a crack in it.

Another thing that caused me to find a great attorney, was briefly reading the forms, the fee cost was far greater that what I paid my attorney, and reading where one omission or mistake on any of the forms could result in a rejection and loss of your fees.

Now if we get into paying an accountant huge sums to prepare your income tax, can only say negative things about this.

[Nik+Heather 121]

The more I think about it, the more doing the immigration process feels like doing taxes to me.

In both cases, some people DIY, and some people pay a "professional" to do the filing.

In taxes as in immigration filing, regardless of if you have a professional doing the filing, YOU have to gather together all of the records and data. YOU still have to know/relay your personal data.

Unlike taxes, the actual forms to fill out for USCIS are a bit more user friendly (not so much "copy line 10b from form xyz, and subtract line 6f" as in taxes, more "Name: Date of Birth:" etc.)

Similarly, the decision about whether or not to use a lawyer depends on your personal situation. My parents use a tax preparer, because they have complex issues that they prefer to have reviewed and filed by someone who knows their stuff. All of my issues are covered in the basic/free TurboTax, so I do it myself. If you have criminal issues on either side, or a failed petition, consider a professional, otherwise there's no real benefit over going it alone in terms of processing time. Paying a lawyer merely to be a second set of eyes to make sure you did everything right seems like a really expensive service that you could do without simply by being meticulous and careful.

What have you got to lose by at least trying to put the package together by yourself? You have to collect all of that evidence anyway, and you might gain confidence as you go. If, before sending it off you are still uncomfortable, then you could go the lawyer route.

Edited November 4, 2013 by Nik+Heather

[Jon and Krissy 452]

I was wondering if anyone would like to share their experiences of using a Lawyer and doing the process alone. I wanted to know if it is useful to use a lawyer and if it makes the process faster?

Unless you have some problems such as overstaying, committing crimes, etc., don't get a lawyer. It's flushing money down the toilet. If anything, it will slow you down.

Expertise: I am a law school grad.