Immigration Lawyer speeds up Process

[corvusheart 163]

So my fiancee from England and I went to go pursue a immigration lawyer, he agreed to take us on as clients and we are starting the paperwork for the K-1 fiancee visa. He says the process will take 6-8 months. He's the boss and owner of the Law Firm. Has anyone else gone with a immigration attorney? If so, what was your experiences?

[jajaju 33]

From reading this forum for over 8 months I can conclude generally that lawyers are not necessary unless you've got a hard case, like one of you has a criminal record or if the beneficiary has ever overstayed a visa or similar issue.

Lawyers in fact will slow down the process. I've read many people on here who didn't find VJ.com until after they paid their lawyers, talk about how much they regretted it.

[EndlessStory 53]

I have seen a couple of post that VJ-er uses attorney and guess what? Some of them got RFE!!

Pretty sure you can read the forms and the guides here and it is exactly the same thing the lawyer would do for you.

Well, unless your case is complicated then you will probably need one.

[Aussiechik77 4]

Don't do it.. They don't care as much as you do... You're just a number , waste of time and money .. Wish I didn't use one . Use this site and you'll be fine

[clairegie 265]

I don't doubt your lawyer is competent and smart. But all they really do is help you compile the initial petition and they are pretty useless with any other part of the process. Better to cut the middle man and try it on your own. Everything is pretty straight forward. At least you don't have to wait for your lawyer to get updates on your case. You hear and see everything first hand.

[Ilovemyman 147]

Lawyeers are useless, my fiance and i started the process alone and we were approved in 4 months.

All you have to do is read well the instrutions and send all they want to uscis and wait .

A lawyer is going to do the same thing.

You can do that, unless you have criminals records or your fiance, beliveme lawyer are useless if you follow the instructions.

[sara..... 371]

none of us can tell you not to use an attorney because we are not attorneys .........

an attorney can not speed up your case.....at this part of the immigration process they can only send in your documents for you .........if you have something that you feel could be a problem for your case you need to talk to an attorney before doing anything else if not then you can follow the guidelines on this forum.....many people have had successful immigration following them.......others didnt feel comfortable filling out the paper work so they hired an attorney to do everything for them

my personal experience with using an attorney for K-1 ,,,,,,,,,took two years just for noa2 because he did not address the two issues that made us seek him out in the first place.......he also could not or would not help at the interview stage.....because of the mess the K-1 was when i file for CR-1 its in my best interest to hire a very knowledgeable attorney as im afraid the mess with my previous fiances K-1 will spill over onto this petition

just my opinion

sara

[Nich-Nick 3,353]

An attorney does not get a pass to the fast lane. Many feel it slows them down slightly because the info must go back and forth between client and attorney. He may not do things as timely as you would. The second part of the process happens in London. That embassy has changed their procedure so many times in the last few months that it is doubtful that most attorney's have that London specific knowledge unless he specializes in handling only UK fiance cases. We have a UK specific forum with a strong knowledge of London tips and tricks. If you have absolutely no time or skill or interest in being involved in your own case, then pay a lawyer to do it for you. It's not rocket science to do it yourself, but it requires reading comprehension.

[Girl from Celebes 588]

One of my friends on VJ told me how she was regret her fiance hired a lawyer who handled their I-129F. Worst part, when her fiance got a letter from NVC, the petitioner is her fiance lawyer's name that written on it!

Since the lawyer handled everything so everytime you get updates, the first hand will get notification is your lawyer. People who hired lawyers they mentioned can't moving forward since all documents went to their lawyers. As long as you don't have complicated case that need an immigration lawyer, is better to save up money for other things.

[BethAnn and Omar 42]

I used a lawyer for my husband's CR1 case and I really regret it. He cost me 5K and we still ended up getting an RFE. He also screwed up our petition at the NVC stage by forgetting to pay the fees.

[Avery Cates 1,141]

So my fiancee from England and I went to go pursue a immigration lawyer, he agreed to take us on as clients and we are starting the paperwork for the K-1 fiancee visa. He says the process will take 6-8 months. He's the boss and owner of the Law Firm. Has anyone else gone with a immigration attorney? If so, what was your experiences?

Have you ever had an issue with overstaying a visa in the US?

Does your fiancee have any criminal history?

If no, then don't bother with an attorney. All they do is fill out the paperwork based on the information that you supply them with. That's it. They cannot speed up the process in any way, despite any claims they might make. Any "special inquiries" they can make on your case are just them calling the same phone number and talking to the same people that you can. They can actually slow down cases because they have no sense of urgency when it comes to submitting things, and they generally don't take a great care in double and triple checking things like you would.

[blooms 63]

Hi corvusheart,

From our experience with an attorney, we could conclude that we spent a hefty sum of money for nothing. Basically you can do this on your own. I suggest you keep the money for plane tickets.

He didn't provide us any new information or speed the process. Could not be reached through phone, only emails and those were seldom replied.

He did help with filling up the forms and mock interview, however, again, you can find very useful information on this website. AND there are tons of people who are willing to help here.

Hope this helps. Good luck

Blooms

[Cathi 5,617]

If you have a straightforward case there is absolutely no reason to hire an attorney. They only thing they do is send in documents that you have to gather on your own anyway. If anything they slow things down because they do things at their own pace. I consulted an attorney before I sent in my husband's petition because we had several "red flags", I am amazed at how much misinformation I was given from a supposedly high regarded very experienced immigration attorney. It was a joke. Had I hired him and followed his advice we would have been doomed. I decided to do it all on my own. My husbands petition was approved in 90 days with no RFE. From the day I sent my husbands petition to POE date it was 10 months, and that included 10 weeks of AP, without the AP it would have been 7 months. Do it on your own if you can, the money spent on an attorney can be saved for your future wedding. Good luck.

[D N Medellin COL 75]

I ditto all the above response. I see only 3 reasons to need an attorney to file the K-1:

1. You have some complications (i.e. past criminal record, etc.) and/or

2. You are not good with following written details, how to accurately complete a document and/or

3. You lack the focus and/or time needed (i.e. ADD, etc.).

Good luck to the both of you!

[lost_at_sea 995]

We originally used a lawyer and regretted it hugely.