HI ALL,
seems like most of us are frustrated with our lawyers ,i have 2 questions here ,all suggestions are welcome--
why are lawyers so lazy for k1?WHAT THEY WANT TO PROVE --UNPROFESSIONALISM AT ITS HIGHEST OR WHAT ?
the attitude they carry is --i care a damn>>//WHY SHOULD we undergo so much hassle and pay them for?
Is it case for k1 or with all type visas i wonder?
lack of compassion and empathy is all they show.
too much ranting .
chao
natasha & peter

Doing it yourself and not using a lawyer saves alot of money and headaches, imo.

why are you using a lawyer if you don't like him? Waste of money.

A person can do it all on thier own very easily with help from the VJ Family. A lot less expensive and a lot easier than waiting on a Lawyer to get things done and give answers

Complete and utter waste of money. (unless you have a very complicated case)
Do it yourself

I do think there are some cases that require a lawyer. Maybe you're one of them? Even so, no one should be treating you with disrespect. Is it possible you can stop working with him/her right now? If not, I'd have a talk with him/her about their attitude. I had a few problems with my divorce lawyer early on, and one time I made a specific appointment just to go in and talk to them about how I was feeling. It really cleared the air, and they apologized. Never hurts to let a professional know when you're not feeling valued as a client. Sorry to hear you're so frustrated.

Good advice from Carla. Sometimes a simple talk clears things up!! We too used a laywer, she was good, but not worth the $2500!! Oh well,thats in the past!!

we used a lawyer.

basically, it was someone I could call and bother and ask how much longer until I found this website!

As previous posters have stated, this process can be do-it-yourself UNLESS you have a more "complicated" case (like a past convictions, to use just one example) OR if you feel better in knowing that a legal professional is handling your paperwork.
That said, do you feel your lawyer is incompetent, or is it just that he does not seem to 'care'? If it is just that he/she is not showing enough empathy....well the truth is, you are probably not his only client, nor is this his/her first case. Some lawyers are more detached than others, their only concern being to do what you hired him/her for, to process your paperwork and to give you legal advice.
However, if you feel that your lawyer is not competent, you always have the choice to stop working with him/her. I don't see from your post that your lawyer has made any mistakes in processing your case (as we've witnessed w/ some members here on VJ) but that could also be true. If so...you can always file a grievance report w/ your state's bar association while you're at it.

Good luck,
-P

Good luck,
-P

If the lawyer is treating you with disrespect and not doing what was promised, get on them. I would call and call and call and drop by and whatever else I had to do to get them moving. After all, you are paying that person for a service. If they aren't completing that service, then they need to refund your money.

That being said, after all that, I hope the lawyer was necessary in the first place.

I'd up the lawyer, I think they make it sound like this process needs them, but iot seems that most times, they're just in the way

my advice on this is , if you have extra cash to give away why not buy some timbits and a great coffee invite everyone from VJ for a day of great visa chat and sweets ,
tawk about everything and anything involved in visa process have a laugh when people type theyr accents ( like me lol )
get all the suport here without loosin a lota cash other then a few timbits
fire your liar ( oops I meen laywer ) we will help you get trough this who needs a liar when ya can have people help you with funny accents

I agree. Waste of time and money. Easy money for lawyers and most of them it appears make a mess of this process and only cause delays and headaches. Recent article in McClains Magazine about lawyers which was a good read.

Dale

Dear Natasha & Peter,

You got me started...I completely agree.
What is it with immigration lawyers period.
A fiend uses one to assist with his green card/permanent residency, and he has to stay on top of it.
Things get mailed to wrong places, etc etc.

My experience is not that, but what i had hoped was a kick-azz, take-no-prisoners, pro-active lawyer.
We got a passive, uninformed, answered-almost-no-questions, ignored huge upcoming pitfalls, and did not prepare me/us of things to come (what was coming down the pipe).

Having just spewed all that, I am thank my lucky stars to have found this place: VJ!!

My sweetie never fully agreed with me and our lawyer employed.
I researched, read the Nolo book (I highly recommend this), talked with all of you wonder-full VJers, and found other couples through friends that has gone through K1 Visa shtuff.

I feel I am a much better "lawyer" than most of what I've witnessed, and would gladly offer my services in the future.
I have assisted friends of friends already and I am still learning.

Lazy lawyers??
Bahaha...must be par for the course.

In the future, to get my "green" card, friends have said that it would behoove me to get a lawyer to cut through the crap and cut much time.
If I do not find the type of lawyer I described, I will not ever hire one again.

Had it not been for the one my sweetie found and hired, everything would have gone differently.
All of my ideas got swept under a rug and that was that.

Do I sound bitter??

One more thing:

I thought we'd be more comfortable handling my case with legal help due to my "checkered past" (as the CO called it, ha), and in the end I found much more real and informative help here on the VJ forums.

Some of the peops here helped me personally, and I am super grateful!!

They are lazy because they can!

Unless you have some very special circumstances, hiring an attorney does nothing but drain funds better spent on yourselves and your future together. An attorney stands in the same line we do, with no time savings what so ever. The paperwork is far from complicated if you can read and follow instructions. Have a question? There are tons of folks here that are in your same shoes.

Too many here have tossed hard earned money on overpriced useless attornies. Do not feed the lawyers. It only keeps them strong causing them to breed out of control and further weakening us.

lawyers work at their own pace.. usually the slower the better for more money. lawyers = suck

Hi, I understand your frustration with lawyers. Most of them are all alike. They are greedy and just want money and in most cases they can do no more for you than you can do yourself. After all, you have to gather all of the information and give it to them. All they do is have their secretary type it up and submit it. You can do it very easily yourself. We used Nolo Books on immigration. They walk you through every line on every form and tell you how to submit it. This book is available to download for less than $30.00. Go to www.nolo.com and click on the immigration tab. You will be able to get a book that will cover K1-4 visas as well as CR1 with instructions clear through citizenship. Immigration is painful enough without having to add to the pain by having a lawyer....I guess you can see that I am not impressed with lawyers..
Take care and good luck.......Loren

your advice is great
but why buy a book when you can have all the info and everything you need right here from visa journey guide ,
http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.ph...amp;page=guides
and if you have trouble to fill out the documents you can use the free examples here
http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.ph...p;page=examples
yes its very time consumming but hey isnt our whole life time consumming ?
it takes time for everything we do in life so why not spend the time for something you realy want other then spend the cash for something you dont need

We just did a lot of research, followed the instructions stated in all the forms and submitted all the documents needed. VJ has everything and it has been our guide.So far so good. KUDOS TO VJ No need for lawyers, although im married to one, and she is the most honest human being I have ever met.

We really need to be careful here. We don't like generalizations about races, genders...we shouldn't be doing it with lawyers either. There are good and bad. I'm sure there are MANY good lawyers in our country who are honest and have a sincere desire to help. It's just knowing who to get, and how much they can assist, or not.

I can prolly give a good answer for #1. The fiance is a lawyer hisself and he says lawyers who work on visas such as the K1, which are just standard paperwork filing charge us upfront. Once they receive that sum, they can't charge you by the hour/by the paperwork, hence they focus on working on tougher immigration/refugee/deportation cases where they CAN charge by the hour. Makes plenty of sense to me! Make $3500 for a K1 visa case OR make $10,000 or more for a deportation case?

I ONLY spoke with our lawyer once. Rest of the time was correspondence with her paralegal.

Now on to why we hired a lawyer. The paperwork was mind-boggling and we both didn't want to f*ck things up. She was recommended by fiance's colleagues. Yeah, you'd think a lawyer would know better than to hire another lawyer for a simple K1 case, eh? EH??? But he's my fiance. Therefore he is male. Therefore he is not as brilliant as women. Bwahahaha.

About your second q, our paralegal has been quite pleasant. However, in the beginning she wasn't too sympathetic to my freak-outedness. I understand the whole visa process NOW, but in the beginning I was really scared and she didn't hold my hand and coddle me, which was what I needed.

It all started when I was asked to withdraw my application for entry into USA a year ago at the airport due to unable to prove ties to Canada. Ties? What f*ckin ties? I was a mess when I went home scared and in shock. Didn't find Visajourney.com till after we hired our lawyer and paid her!

If I had found VJ earlier, I'd have been more calm and logical and done this thing myself and fiance coulda spent the money on some new shoes and dresses for me.

Thanks for reading. I needed this.

thx for your responses!

I fell into the same trap - hired the lawyer and paid before I ever found this website. I wonder what we could do to help make it more visible?

I've done far more work than our lawyer, of course, and where she's been content to sit and wait, telling me that we just have to deal with the delays, I've decided to be proactive and bug people until stuff gets done. The big thing for us was moving, and her telling us not to do anything about my fiance's address as it would just complicate matters. (How stupid am I for listening to her, right?) That ended up getting our application sent to the wrong frickin' country for processing, and when I managed to figure that out (as a result of my constant freak-outs and anal checking) she was totally nonchalant about the whole thing and came back with "Well I guess you'll be delayed then." AGH!!!!! As if my life already isn't stressful enough.

Anyway, I'm trying to convince myself that she will prove to be worth the money, as my fiance has an overstay on his record from ten years ago.

Same same, plus...
Yes to "if I had found VJ sooner"...my research and the help of VJ helped me/us.
Money was spent to ease my mind originally, and in the end, it was for nothing.
Live and learn.