Paying a lawyer..

[Forever123 4]

Thinking about going the lawyer route. How much is TOO much and how much did YOU pay if you used a lawyer?!

Thanks

P&L

[Bruinsfans0607 4]

Waste of money if u have clean record it's $2000 w/o needing a waiver add $1500 to that if u do need 1 and that's NOT including all the processing and filing fees

Nor does it guarantee u Ur visa

[Marco&Bettina 502]

Thinking about going the lawyer route. How much is TOO much and how much did YOU pay if you used a lawyer?!

Thanks

P&L

This is a self-help site. I have yet to pay any person anything to help me with this process.

[ANGUESSAN 10]

my lawyer charged us $2000...to sit on his duff and do very little :/ I'm the one giving him the updates on our case :/ wish i had found this site much sooner and i would've saved myself the money but oh well

[Girl from Celebes 588]

Thinking about going the lawyer route. How much is TOO much and how much did YOU pay if you used a lawyer?!

Thanks

P&L

Do you have complicated case regarding US immigration before or stumbled in some criminal cases? If not, all you needed just learning step by step on Visa Journey. If you have trouble to understand the forms and busy then you can use a lawyer to prepare for application.

[Forever123 4]

I was married once before (divorce was final only one year ago) and petitioned for my now ex-husband.. does that make my case "complicated"?

[Girl from Celebes 588]

I was married once before (divorce was final only one year ago) and petitioned for my now ex-husband.. does that make my case "complicated"?

I don't think so. You can save a lot of money just by learning step by step on VJ. If you need some assistance, there a lot people here are willing to help you.

[jtaylor 8]

As I learned from my divorce, representing yourself can save you a ton of money. I had gotten quotes for handling my divorce for as low as $3000. I decided to do it myself.

After I had done most of it I had a few questions during the process and used my work Employee Assistance Plan to obtain a free 20 minute consultation. I had all my questions answered in 5 minutes over the phone. The lawyer offered to finish up my divorce for just $1000. I had to type up my Final Judgement and two stipulations, have my ex sign them, and drop them off at the court. They had me wait for the judge to finish the case he was working on and he finalized my divorce on the spot. Total time, 2 hours.

My ex wife also spent $6,500 to have an SSDI lawyer fill out a form online with us, send a few letters to her doctors, and show up at a hearing once. I learned my lesson from watching this process. Lawyers are very expensive and I try to avoid them until they are absolutely necessary.

[charlieprince 24]

the truth of the matter? you'll be doing all the work yourself.. but having a lawyer is good just so you can have someone to go talk to/etc in case

that being said, i consulted 2 lawyers for my straight-forward k-1 fiancee case (only thing is we're cousins) and I only did that because I wanted someone to talk to/handhold me thru the process/etc

first lawyer i consulted had lawyer fees $7,000 (lol yea right)

the 2nd lawyer I signed with had her fees at $2,500

I set a maximum of $3,000 i'd drop on lawyer fees alone..

and everyone is right, it does not include the application fees/etc and you WILL be doing all the work pretty much.. but like i said, for me, having a lawyer is like a safety net i can talk to/ask questions/etc

but after this k-1 process is done with hopefully my baby with me here in nyc.. everything else after i'm doing on my own without a lawyer's help unless the fees i already paid for carries over to every other immigration case i may have

[CowBoE 429]

I was married once before (divorce was final only one year ago) and petitioned for my now ex-husband.. does that make my case "complicated"?

So was I, and only complication is you have to supply final divorce decree in your filing. That's all.

VJ is the best site of its kind out there , and just based on posting and statistics they show,

you can see that thousands...actually probably more like tens of thousands of users appeared to

have successfully filed on their own...like me and many others that are actively posting here.

Unless you or fiance(e) have unusual circumstances, use that money to take a nice vacation later,

and give it a shot. If you take just one weekend to read and take notes on K1 visa guides that

are posted on VJ, you can see that it's not that bad.

Give it a shot and ask questions. There are ton of users here that are willing to answer questions

on K1 visa processing. I personally couldn't have done it without this site.

[Forever123 4]

Thanks, I think I've made up my mind

[davidpipgras 1]

Hi Newbie... a little late, but will give you my perspective...

We (my fiancé and I) are going through the process now. I consulted with others and even talked to lawyers, etc. Basically, as noted, unless your case is really, really complicated, you do not need a lawyer. You can do virtually all the steps by yourself and save anywhere from $3000 to $10,000 or more by not having a lawyer. Using all the fine folks here on VJ, we have completed the process up to the consulate interview (next week) ourselves, and it was processed rather quickly and without any problems (the only issue was I missed a checkbox on one of the forms and it was immediately corrected and completed without issues).

The people I have spoken with who have hired lawyers have pretty much all regretted the unnecessary expense. Take that for what it is worth, but for my own example, I am glad I opted to follow the steps on VJ, document the heck out of everything and save the money... you will need it for all the fees....

--Dave

[AverysMom 76]

I've seen people on here get RFEs and denials after spending thousands on lawyers, honestly your case doesn't sound complicated. In my opinion you don't need a lawyer, this site has great guides to follow...

[rhein 451]

Thinking about going the lawyer route. How much is TOO much and how much did YOU pay if you used a lawyer?!

Thanks

P&L

Waste of money and is more likely to slow things down than speed them up. Follow the guides and advice here, be meticulous, and you'll do fine.

[Bruinsfans0607 4]

Is it hard to get rid of lawyer once they've started a case? I'm now waiting to hear from nvc