Our petition is on its way back to the US, we are awaiting our NOID Letter. We know what our mistake was, and it should be easily explained. We have boxes of documents in order ready to send off as soon as we get this letter. My question is, at this stage of the petition do we need a lawyer, just to be safe? I have contacted one and have an appointment to go back on the 25th to present all my documents to her. She says as soon as she gets them she can get the letter(NOID) expidited to us from the DOS. But we were told to wait four months for the letter and already we are nearing three months. So should we invest in this lawyer or are we wasting our money on something we can do ourselves?? (send in the documents)

thanks
vicki

vicki,

I don't know if you should invest in this lawyer, knowing nothing about her, but I would at least have consulted with a US immigration attorney long before now.

To others who may be reading - experienced immigration attornies have a much better idea about what potential problems exist, and how to avoid or mitigate them, than DIYers. If one is going to DIY, exploring the facts of the case with an experienced immigration attorney up front is an inexpensive and worthwhile investment.

Yodrak

I can not tell you if you need a lawyer or not but I can tell you why I chose to use a lawyer.

My fiance suggested a lawyer who had both russian and english speaking lawyers. This did two things, allowed her to speak to someone in her native language about this process and keep me from possibly making a mistake when I would try to explain something. Her english is excelent in my opinion but if this is something that would help lower her stress levels I was fine with it.

Paul

Most of people do not use lawyers.
If your case is not very complicated, you do not need to use lawyer.

Most people here believe that lawyer is just something you make yourself feel safe. it doesnt mean that you are safe.

andy_k1,

What makes you think that most people do not use lawyers? I will agree that most VJers do not use lawyers, but most people are not VJers.

How is one to know if their case is "not very complicated" if they understand as little about immigration as most VJers? A fair number of VJers discover somewhere along the journey that their case is a bit more complicated than they first thought it was. Sometimes the discovery is a minor inconvenience, sometimes it's a major problem, and sometimes it can be fatal.

Hopefully vicki, the OP in this thread, is in the 2nd category and not the 3rd. How ironic that you chose this thread to make your comments.

Yodrak

andy, (sorry to pick on you)

Do you know what an NOID is? Would it help if you knew if meant Notice Of Intent to Deny? Is that a complication?

Your exactly right Yodrak, we came into this thinking as long as we both knew we loved each other and the visa was for no other reason then what could possibly go wrong. But in the end its been a very painful journey we are 15 months into it and now this NOID on the way. The Chennai Embassy seems to have come to the conclusion that we are a fraud because "they have proof that Im living with someone here in the US". All because they called my home very early one morning and a man answered.. Which by the way happened to be my 18 year old son. Also they seem to think that since Bala didnt inform his "neighbors " that he was planning to marry then he must be a fraud!!!

Thanks for all the advice

Vicki/Bala