Attorney for K-1 application

[paulreed 0]

Hello all,

I was wondering if any of you have used an attorney for your K-1 process, and am looking to see what experiences you have had, and get some opinions.

Originally, I planned on using an attorney for this process, to be absolutely sure we had crossed every "t" and dotted every "i." Afterall, spending some extra $ was not an issue if there was a chance things would go quicker, smoother or more accurately with an attorney.

However, both my fiancee from India and I are both administrators in our respective careers, and are both no stranger to paperwork. We of course have a pile of records of all correspondence, visit receipts; tickets, hotel stays, etc.

We have been lurking in here on and off recently, and it seems many of you undertake the process yourselves, without the help or advice of an immigration attorney.

Hoping to get some opinions on weather an attorney will actually be a help or not. We have a law firm but have not paid them a retainer yet.

Experiences? Opinions? Horror stories? Most of all, Encouragement? B)

Much thanks in advance.

[livelife 0]

I have an immigration atty here in the US,just because my husband wants us to have one..but if you will just read visa journey,it's all here..i mean the procedure and time line and experiences they had during interviews;how they were able to solve problems.Personally,i would say you don't need an attorney.Waste of money...

[Benika 1]

Hello all,

I was wondering if any of you have used an attorney for your K-1 process, and am looking to see what experiences you have had, and get some opinions.

Originally, I planned on using an attorney for this process, to be absolutely sure we had crossed every "t" and dotted every "i." Afterall, spending some extra $ was not an issue if there was a chance things would go quicker, smoother or more accurately with an attorney.

However, both my fiancee from India and I are both administrators in our respective careers, and are both no stranger to paperwork. We of course have a pile of records of all correspondence, visit receipts; tickets, hotel stays, etc.

We have been lurking in here on and off recently, and it seems many of you undertake the process yourselves, without the help or advice of an immigration attorney.

Hoping to get some opinions on weather an attorney will actually be a help or not. We have a law firm but have not paid them a retainer yet.

Experiences? Opinions? Horror stories? Most of all, Encouragement? B)

Much thanks in advance.

Since you have been lurking here and reading post I am sure you have picked up on some of the flashpoints. Use these to interview your attorney.

We were going to go with an attorney for peace of mind, but soon found that they knew even less than we did. One attorney told us the process would take 2-4 months, we knew this was not true, (and an attorney cant make it go faster) Several did not know what type of evidance of having met we would need (and one told us that we would not need any at all, despite the fact that people regularly get REFs for not sending any)

I understand that an attorney can be a good idea if you are not used to doing a lot of paperwork (I am an Architect ... l live paper) or if you have a difficult case. But for people who do have the skills to do the paperwork themselves I really dont think they are that much help. Especially with sites like this one out there.

My fiance is not that good with paperwork so I made a very detailed list of everything we would need and would be sending and he just followed it to the letter. Just before he send everything out he sat down with the guides on this site again and read them again, and checked every point in the guide against our package to make sure every point was covered. You have to understand that it is not gonna take you one afternoon to get everything ready, it takes a few weeks for most people. (mainly just finding all the stuff) but if you invest the time and you double and tripple check everything you should be fine.

No problem so far ... fingers crossed.

Beni

[diday 0]

An attorney helped us, just because my husband want it. Thier company did a great job for us. but with the different visa forums that i discovered lately, it is very useful, if you are willing to ask some details in your applications and to research for answers.

[Devkpaik 1]

Hello all,

I was wondering if any of you have used an attorney for your K-1 process, and am looking to see what experiences you have had, and get some opinions.

Originally, I planned on using an attorney for this process, to be absolutely sure we had crossed every "t" and dotted every "i." Afterall, spending some extra $ was not an issue if there was a chance things would go quicker, smoother or more accurately with an attorney.

However, both my fiancee from India and I are both administrators in our respective careers, and are both no stranger to paperwork. We of course have a pile of records of all correspondence, visit receipts; tickets, hotel stays, etc.

We have been lurking in here on and off recently, and it seems many of you undertake the process yourselves, without the help or advice of an immigration attorney.

Hoping to get some opinions on weather an attorney will actually be a help or not. We have a law firm but have not paid them a retainer yet.

Experiences? Opinions? Horror stories? Most of all, Encouragement? B)

Much thanks in advance.

Using a lawyer is entirely dependent upon whether or not you feel comfortable doing this process on your own, as well as whether or not you have the time to do it.

If you feel you can do it on your own, and if you have the time and patience, then by all means I suggest doing it yourself. You are going to hear a lot of opinions about this issue, however when it's all said and done it comes to person preference.

Good luck.

[ThaitoUSA 15]

If you feel you can do it on your own, and if you have the time and patience, then by all means I suggest doing it yourself. You are going to hear a lot of opinions about this issue, however when it's all said and done it comes to personal preference.

Good luck.

Wow! How insightful of a comment! Super obvious yet often overlooked. One person will say, "Yes, please do retain an attorney." While another will comment, "It's so easy to apply on your own, it's a waste of money." Neither is wrong. It is just their preferences. As Devkpaik noted, your available time and comfort of preparing everything are two critical factors that shall help you decide.

If not for a site like VJ, I might not be so confident to do it on my own. If not for the invaluable insight of members along with the Visa Guides, I likely would have been confused and/or have made several mistakes.

Whatever your choice, all the best to you.

Pete

[paulreed 0]

hmmm...

We had just found a good review for Calvin Knickerbocker on this site.. but reading mixed reviews as well, and some not-so-great ones.

If we retain an attorney, does anyone else have a good referral for us?

[sara..... 371]

hmmm...

We had just found a good review for Calvin Knickerbocker on this site.. but reading mixed reviews as well, and some not-so-great ones.

If we retain an attorney, does anyone else have a good referral for us?

well im sure that someone has found him to be good but i our case he has done nothing look at our time line.........we feel we have been deserted and have more understanding of what is going on than what he has told us ................

[katej0203 1]

Personally, I would not recommend having an attorney, unless you think there is an issue with your application that could be difficult for you to handle yourself.... (eg. problems with previous divorce, problems with US visas in the past, deportation/overstay, etc etc etc). If you think your journey will be standard and straightforward, then I think that the advice and experience from members of this forum should get you through just fine... we didnt have an attorney, and did not once wish we had got one... so long as you are organised and have all the paperwork you will need, then that should be enough.

There are so many things you need to do, and so many tales of bad experiences, that can make this process very daunting... apart from taking a very long time, it really is ok... so long as you give them what they want!

Good luck!

[Wis-Can 0]

We didn't go with a lawyer, although the thought did cross our minds several times. We decided since a lawyer can't speed up the process....we didn't see the need. We both read everything we could on the process, talk to some people who have gone through it, even talked to a friend who does immigration law, ...we then decided to go it alone. I feel we made the right decision..so far anyways. I guess it boils down to piece of mind, if your the type of person who will stress about it ....you may want to consider it. And if you decide to go it alone, you have a great support system here on VJ! Good luck with your decision.

[Laura+Tom 2]

The process won't go any quicker if you use a lawyer or do it by yourself. Some lawyers have been known to say that you will only wait a couple of months before approval. This isn't true as once it is submitted to USCIS it's out of the lawyers hands. You will still have to collect all the documents yourself and fill all the forms out, the lawyer will just check them.

If you feel you need help they by all means get a lawyer but many many people have used the guides and done it themselves successfully. If you ever need help you can always post a question here and get an answer from one of the many people to have gone through the process. Personally I think it's better to get an answer from someone who has actually gone through what your going through.

Good luck.

[ForeverAmen 0]

For the most part it all boils down to your personal preference.

In my case, we filed the paper work ourselves. So far we have filed for my husband's K-1 Fiance Visa, Adjustment of Status, and now the Removal of Conditions. The worst parts have been the wait (which an attorney can not improve), and recently noticing that they spelled my husbands name incorrectly for his upcoming Biometric Appointment. So ... guess it's a matter of what you prefer.

BTW - initially I considered hiring an attorney. During a phone consultation with an Attorney, I was told "your case is very straightforward. Why don't you check out the website VisaJourney.com. I'm sure you will find all the answers you need." And guess what?!?!? Here I am .... this website (IMO) gives more answers than you have questions for.

Wish you the best!

Boaz

[daboyz 36]

I hired an attorney. Thanks to them I am at least 3 months behind in the process.

[LuckyDucky 0]

We had just found a good review for Calvin Knickerbocker on this site.. but reading mixed reviews as well, and some not-so-great ones.

If we retain an attorney, does anyone else have a good referral for us?

Using an attorney can definitely be helpful, it really depends on the person. These are government forms, and so they require everything to be as perfect and exact as can be. If one happens to be prone to making careless mistakes on forms (and we all do to some extent) then hiring an attorney would be helpful. If your case is not very straightforward, you may want to hire an attorney. However, if you're the kind of person who will double-, triple-, quadruple-check everything, chances are you'll be ok.

An attorney can not make the process go any faster once the paperwork is at USCIS. The benefit of hiring an attorney is a ) they should be familiar with the required paperwork and b ) will hopefully have a relationship with the local embassy.

For paperwork, they should be able to tell you immediately what information you need to gather. Once you turn it over to them, you hope that the attorney (or most likely, the paralegal/clerk in the office) puts your paperwork together quickly to mail it off. Then you wait.

A good immigration attorney will have a relationship with the consulate that you will be petitioning through. If there are any snags, he/she will be able to work with the consulate from a position of already-established trust. For example, the Consulate in Ho Chi Minh is notoriously known for having lots of fraud visa petitions. I've read on the boards here that a lot of people (with presumably genuine relationships) get denied there on the last step for various reasons. In these cases, attorney Mark Ellis seems to be well-known at that embassy and have saved a lot of visa petitions from returning to the US.

If you decide to hire an attorney, you may want to ask around in the regional forums for suggestions as well.

As a data point, I did not use an attorney. My case was straightforward: neither of us were previously married, neither of us have any criminal histories, neither of us have any strange STDs, etc. I can also be pretty ####### about doing paperwork completely and correctly.

Edited October 22, 2008 by LuckyDucky

[Yader&Sarah 0]

A good immigration attorney will have a relationship with the consulate that you will be petitioning through. If there are any snags, he/she will be able to work with the consulate from a position of already-established trust.

This is a great point. I was given the advice (by another lawyer) that if we did go for a lawyer, to make sure it was someone that had had recent cases through the Nicaraguan Consulate.

We ended up hiring a lawyer, although we had already filled out all ppwk. It was a personal preference. I was stressed out beyond belief and it seemed worth the money for sanity and health. I can't say that our laywer has done all that much that we couldn't have done ourselves. But right off the bat we faced an issue concerning a prior visitor's visa that my fiance had applied for; without the lawyer, we would have been lost. So that turned out to be a good thing.

Now that we are further into the process, I think that we are more familiar with the process and what is before us, and will choose to continue without a lawyer in the future. But for that initial virgin step of the visa process, it has been a good thing.