Attorneys help to apply CR-1 visa

[M.W.A 1]

I’m Japanese living in japan, he is American living in LA. We just started to work on visa. We hired an attorney to help us. We submitted the questionnaire to them. But it doesn’t seem like actual documents that we should submit to the US immigration office. Is there anyone who use an attorney and it took so much time to proceed either so helpful?? 
hope my English is good enough to be understood.

[powerpuff 6,712]

~ Topic moved from CR1/IR1 Progress Reports to Process ~
 

What questionnaire? What documents?

 

This is a DIY (Do It Yourself) site, almost all here do not use an attorney

[M.W.A 1]

I’m so new here I didn’t know that this site is for DIY ;;

The document that I mentioned was I130 ( first step?) and the questionnaire is their own format of the attorney office which is similar with I130 format.

 

[powerpuff 6,712]

6 minutes ago, M.W.A said:

I’m so new here I didn’t know that this site is for DIY ;;

The document that I mentioned was I130 ( first step?) and the questionnaire is their own format of the attorney office which is similar with I130 format.

 

Yes, you’re basically answering the questions from I-130 and they just put your answers from the “questionnaire” onto the I-130. So my question is why not just fill it in yourself? 

[pushbrk 12,898]

15 minutes ago, powerpuff said:

Yes, you’re basically answering the questions from I-130 and they just put your answers from the “questionnaire” onto the I-130. So my question is why not just fill it in yourself? 

Yes, that's what the questionnaire is for, but some people are not confident they will understand and interpret the questions properly.  We get lots of questions here from people who have NOT interpreted  the questions correctly.  What about the people who think they did, but didn't.  Lot's of folks hire professionals to do things for them, they don't want to do themselves or have better things to do with their time than do the homework to manage a process they'll do once in their life.

[M.W.A 1]

20 minutes ago, powerpuff said:

Yes, you’re basically answering the questions from I-130 and they just put your answers from the “questionnaire” onto the I-130. So my question is why not just fill it in yourself? 

Yeah I suggested to do it by ourselves to my husband but he doesn’t have confidence with it. So we decided to hire professional:) 

3 minutes ago, pushbrk said:

Yes, that's what the questionnaire is for, but some people are not confident they will understand and interpret the questions properly.  We get lots of questions here from people who have NOT interpreted  the questions correctly.  What about the people who think they did, but didn't.  Lot's of folks hire professionals to do things for them, they don't want to do themselves or have better things to do with their time than do the homework to manage a process they'll do once in their life.

Yes that’s what exactly the reason why we decided:) we could’ve done it by ourselves to save up money to go back and forth to visit each other tho  

[powerpuff 6,712]

1 minute ago, pushbrk said:

Yes, that's what the questionnaire is for, but some people are not confident they will understand and interpret the questions properly.  We get lots of questions here from people who have NOT interpreted  the questions correctly.  What about the people who think they did, but didn't.  Lot's of folks hire professionals to do things for them, they don't want to do themselves or have better things to do with their time than do the homework to manage a process they'll do once in their life.

Right. And then they come here and tell us that their attorney didn’t fill it out right or omitted information. If you’re comfortable giving that much control to someone, sure but then you have to be absolutely sure you chose the very best and knowledgeable lawyer. And if they take so long to do it for you that you have to come here to ask if that’s normal, is it really worth it?

 

My point is nobody else is as interested in being successful in this journey as yourself. 

[pushbrk 12,898]

1 minute ago, powerpuff said:

Right. And then they come here and tell us that their attorney didn’t fill it out right or omitted information. If you’re comfortable giving that much control to someone, sure but then you have to be absolutely sure you chose the very best and knowledgeable lawyer. And if they take so long to do it for you that you have to come here to ask if that’s normal, is it really worth it?

 

My point is nobody else is as interested in being successful in this journey as yourself. 

Careful.  It's actually a violation of the terms of service here to advise people against seeking legal help.  People have different priorities.  Maybe try to respect that.

[powerpuff 6,712]

Just now, pushbrk said:

Careful.  It's actually a violation of the terms of service here to advise people against seeking legal help.  People have different priorities.  Maybe try to respect that.

That’s why I said you have to be sure you’re getting the best lawyer for the money spent. Never said not to seek legal help. 

[pushbrk 12,898]

1 minute ago, powerpuff said:

That’s why I said you have to be sure you’re getting the best lawyer for the money spent. Never said not to seek legal help. 

I read what you wrote.

[powerpuff 6,712]

1 minute ago, pushbrk said:

I read what you wrote.

Great.

[Letspaintcookies 2,310]

12 hours ago, M.W.A said:

I’m Japanese living in japan, he is American living in LA. We just started to work on visa. We hired an attorney to help us. We submitted the questionnaire to them. But it doesn’t seem like actual documents that we should submit to the US immigration office. Is there anyone who use an attorney and it took so much time to proceed either so helpful?? 
hope my English is good enough to be understood.

Like others already said the lawyer will use that questionnaire to fill out the actual forms.

 

When they send you the final documents to sign make sure they send you everything so you can review. We've seen it before that the lawyer only sent the one page for the signature, people signed and later found out that the lawyer made mistakes in the forms. 

Also request proof that your application was send ( the tracking number from the courier if it's send pair mail) and request a copy of the NOA1 ( acceptance letter ) with your case number so that you're able to follow up on your case on your own.

[Boiler 45,545]

Lawyers have paralegals to fill in forms.

[Letspaintcookies 2,310]

13 minutes ago, Boiler said:

Lawyers have paralegals to fill in forms.

And if the puppy of the cleaning lady fills the forms, my point stands 😉

[Scandi 4,166]

15 hours ago, M.W.A said:

I’m Japanese living in japan, he is American living in LA. We just started to work on visa. We hired an attorney to help us. We submitted the questionnaire to them. But it doesn’t seem like actual documents that we should submit to the US immigration office. Is there anyone who use an attorney and it took so much time to proceed either so helpful?? 
hope my English is good enough to be understood.

Some lawyers are just not good at what they do, as with all kinds of professionals there are always going to be good and bad ones. If this lawyer is taking forever to file your papers after you have already given them all the info and documents they need, maybe you need to look into a new lawyer. Some lawyers cause major delays, it could be in taking months to even file the petition, but it could also be that they cause delays by missing important things with brings RFEs and sometimes even denials. So just like Powerpuff said - if you're hellbent on using a lawyer, then get someone who is GOOD.

 

For most people it only takes an hour or two to fill out the actual forms, without a lawyer. What could take time is to collect all necessary supporting documents - but this is something you have to do on your own anyway, no lawyer will help you with this. 

 

Also know that many beneficiaries fill out these petitions on their own, so even if your partner doesn't feel comfortable doing it on his own, maybe you do? I was the beneficiary and I did ALL the work myself, my US citizen husband (then fiance) only signed the forms at the end, he was barely involved at all.

Edited February 8, 2022 by Scandi