Is hiring an Immigration Attorney worth the money?

[Cheschirecat 176]

14 hours ago, Ben Murphy said:

We are about to start this process, and I have been receiving mixed messages over whether or not I should be engaging the services of an Immigration Attorney to help with it. 

 

However, I know that this doesn't come cheap so I only want to do it if it is really going to benefit us to do so.

 

Could anyone offer any advice on this please? Is it straight forward enough to go through the process ourselves, or should I be looking at using a specialist?

 

Will having an Immigration Attorney speed up the process, reducing the time between filing the I-130 Petition to receiving my Interview invitation?

 

Thanks for your help, in advance.

 

Ben

Hello! 

 

We did ours with the magnificent help of this website and the members. No attorney. We filed in March and our interview is 10/17.

 

 

[vistawateraz 28]

15 hours ago, Ben Murphy said:

We are about to start this process, and I have been receiving mixed messages over whether or not I should be engaging the services of an Immigration Attorney to help with it. 

 

However, I know that this doesn't come cheap so I only want to do it if it is really going to benefit us to do so.

 

Could anyone offer any advice on this please? Is it straight forward enough to go through the process ourselves, or should I be looking at using a specialist?

 

Will having an Immigration Attorney speed up the process, reducing the time between filing the I-130 Petition to receiving my Interview invitation?

 

Thanks for your help, in advance.

 

Ben

Ben,

 

We chose to go with a visa services company (RapidVisa). They don't get your visa done any faster, but they did ensure that our paperwork and all supporting evidence was correct before sending to the government.  The process is really simple and affordable.  You fill out your forms online, you can edit and correct as needed. After your done, they will review them to see if there are any errors. Once you've got everything right, you will print the forms and add the evidence (pictures, signatures, etc). They have placeholders in the packet so you know where everything goes. You send them the packet, which is reviewed again, then its sent to the government for processing.  Our K1 went through with no RFE's, our AOS is ready to be scheduled for an interview and so far no RFE's as well.  I have a very busy schedule, so RapidVisa was definitely worth it for us. 

 

Dan

[geowrian 22,337]

1 minute ago, vistawateraz said:

they did ensure that our paperwork and all supporting evidence was correct before sending to the government

Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

[Eugenia2017 28]

I think it's a matter of having time to read the instructions that the doubts are clear on these forums. So if you have that time, do yourself.!!

[Highmystic 234]

1 hour ago, geowrian said:

Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Yes, but the expiration date on the proper form may be a day passed due and sent in and denied.  "Things Happen".  Like the forms I bought on line in the beginning, one was expired and they would not refund my money.  Same with a lawyer, they screw something up and Sorry, no refund.  ever...

[geowrian 22,337]

23 minutes ago, Highmystic said:

Yes, but the expiration date on the proper form may be a day passed due and sent in and denied.  "Things Happen".  Like the forms I bought on line in the beginning, one was expired and they would not refund my money.  Same with a lawyer, they screw something up and Sorry, no refund.  ever...

Right. Everybody makes mistakes - an attorney, RV, and even VJ. One must always be right on top of their own case whether they do it themselves or with the assistance of anybody else.

None of the above offer refunds or do-overs. One of them is free.

[s.ramos510 14]

https://mypathtocitizenship.com/how-to-fill-out-form-i-130-petition-for-alien-relative-part1/

 

this simplifies  the application questions down 

[ahqs90 3]

I highly recommend getting one, I didn't and took the advice off of here and told myself it'd be straightforward, but its not really, there's so much at stake 

and having all the fine details figured out its tough and challenging, its also hard to get real advice because everyones case is different. with all the changes going on its good to have a lawyer in your arsenal for guidance, because anything can go wrong. it's been extremely long and stressful for me and looking back I wish I had gotten a lawyer and not used just VJ. IMHO. others have had a very straightforward experience and are lucky to but unfortunately I haven't. 

[Highmystic 234]

3 hours ago, geowrian said:

Right. Everybody makes mistakes - an attorney, RV, and even VJ. One must always be right on top of their own case whether they do it themselves or with the assistance of anybody else.

None of the above offer refunds or do-overs. One of them is free.

correctomundo!  If I make an error, it's on me. 

[Jayface 118]

We are using boundless.com. We’re currently at NVC stage, but so far I highly recommend them. 

[W.Rominger 54]

i did and i absolutely regret it. it cost us over 3000USD for the whole process (visa issue fee and consultation blah blah blah)

the attorney herself  is not an issue, we barely see her. the only one time was when she request to have a rehearsal interview before embassy interview.

other than that, its her legal assistant dealing with our case. she is the worst. 1) she left our file on desk and forget about it. we contacted her 6 months later and got answer that it was never been processed. 2)she is a simplified mandarin user, and i am traditional mandarin user. one of the reason why we hire the attorney was because they promise they would be able to handle my documents in Chinese. and turn out she cannot even type out my name in Chinese characters when applying i-160

 

but on the other hand, as my fiance didnt want to care much about the process. he would love to be spoon-feed the information rather than doing his own research, hiring the attorney was a awesome choice for him  

[Samantha & Rad 56]

On 9/25/2019 at 9:30 AM, Ben Murphy said:

We are about to start this process, and I have been receiving mixed messages over whether or not I should be engaging the services of an Immigration Attorney to help with it. 

 

However, I know that this doesn't come cheap so I only want to do it if it is really going to benefit us to do so.

 

Could anyone offer any advice on this please? Is it straight forward enough to go through the process ourselves, or should I be looking at using a specialist?

 

Will having an Immigration Attorney speed up the process, reducing the time between filing the I-130 Petition to receiving my Interview invitation?

 

Thanks for your help, in advance.

 

Ben

Hi Ben.

Fellow beneficiary from U.K. here. I do not think it's necessary. It does not speed it up.

And most of your questions will be answered here. Or by going through a visa processing company like Rapid Visa (small fee).

 

[LilyJ 1,258]

6 minutes ago, Samantha & Rad said:

Hi Ben.

Fellow beneficiary from U.K. here. I do not think it's necessary. It does not speed it up.

And most of your questions will be answered here. Or by going through a visa processing company like Rapid Visa (small fee).

 

I wouldn’t even recommend Rapid Visa. They aren’t really “knowledgeable” at all. They just recite to you the outdated and sometimes flat incorrect procedures they’ve been given by their higher ups. They’re not immigration professionals nor do they have any first hand knowledge or experience on immigration. VJ is a million times superior, with those with real first hand knowledge and even immigration law professionals who regularly respond and give knowledgeable advice for free on these forums 

[Samantha & Rad 56]

1 minute ago, LilyJ said:

I wouldn’t even recommend Rapid Visa. They aren’t really “knowledgeable” at all. They just recite to you the outdated and sometimes flat incorrect procedures they’ve been given by their higher ups. They’re not immigration professionals nor do they have any first hand knowledge or experience on immigration. VJ is a million times superior, with those with real first hand knowledge and even immigration law professionals who regularly respond and give knowledgeable advice for free on these forums 

 

By no means do you have to use a visa processing company. But for us they were extremely helpful with answers (we found) to be accurate. For us, their assistance compiling and checking the I-130 was invaluable.

 

[LilyJ 1,258]

15 minutes ago, Samantha & Rad said:

 

By no means do you have to use a visa processing company. But for us they were extremely helpful with answers (we found) to be accurate. For us, their assistance compiling and checking the I-130 was invaluable.

 

To each their own. I used them as well and personally, I wish I had never used them, I don't think it was worth the money. They were more irritating to work with than it was worth, and they consistently tried to correct me on things as even my own middle name (took 3 days to convince them that yes, that IS my middle name, now enable printing please). They also insist that you cannot use pictures, boarding passes, vacations, etc as evidence of bona fide relationship, and tried to insist that I should throw them out and include 2 affidavits instead, which are worthless, especially compared to evidence of time spent together (this took me another 3-4 days to convince them that no I was not going to do that and to just send out my package to USCIS already). Their system of filing in their form and having it automatically generate the filled out I130 for you is convenient, but to me, not worth the cost. Like I said, they aren't immigration professionals. They have a lot of outdated info and everything they know is just what their higher ups tell them in training and it is not all accurate, or helpful. Sure, they can be helpful and accurate, but they can also be devastatingly wrong. Many RV horror stories on here of RV giving people incorrect info and/or messing up their cases. Personally I'm glad I found this site before filing the I130, much more knowledgeable people here, and especially because this site kept me from following what could have been a huge slow-down in our process if I had dumped all my visitation evidence and only used 2 letter affidavits like RV suggested to me. There's nothing RV can tell you that VJ can't, and then some

Edited September 28, 2019 by LilyJ