Suggestion for Lawyer ( Attorney )

[William Lee]

Any suggestion for lawyers ( Attorney ) for K3 in Northern California.

 

Hello after looking and trying to read required documents, I have decided to find a lawyer. This is after read some of the horror stories that might go wrong and relatives. At first, I was trying to do most of the work like filling out the forum and just hiring a paralegal that specialize in immigration. The paralegal can help with the finer details of the paperwork. I was planning to get a K1 since it is faster but now we got married. It's a K3 now. The cost was reasonable, like 100 to 175USD for a paralegal.

 

Then my wife¡¯s relatives got involved and made a big thing about how things can go wrong. Well, if anyone can suggest ( recommend ) a lawyer in the San Francisco Bay Area please post the information. I can fill out most of the paperwork myself but need some advice to get it right the first time and not wait several years of red tape or white slip.

 

 

I have already did a search for lawyer and read the following link:

 

http://candleforlove.com/forums/index.php?...6&hl=Lawyer

 

Thanks¡­..

Edited June 29, 2008 by William Lee (see edit history)

[tonado]

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.ph...mp;page=k3guide

 

Save your money. Forget the lawyer. Lawyer can made mistakes too. A lawyer is the last resort if your case encounters serious problem.

[avg99]

What is a lawyer going to do that you can't do?

[lostinblue]

http://www.amazon.com/Fiance-Marriage-Visa...4433&sr=1-1

Get a copy of this book and read it. Lawyers are all over the book as far as prices. If you search for one please post some prices for their services without mentioning the firm. I was taken for $ 5000, about 10 years ago by a shyster immigration lawyer so I have a opinion that ranks on the low side of them. A friend of mine used one for about $2500 for the K-1 and was charged $ 1500 for AOS paperwork. My AOS paperwork took about an hour to fill out and I used Visa Journey and the book with advice from some members of candle. You willl collect all the information for your lawyer . In the end his $10/hour office help will fill it out and he will sign it and send you a big bill. Perhaps your time is worth more to you per hour than most people reading this forum. Then it makes sense to use one. Or if there has been a problem with her and immigration before (an overstay for example) then at least seek the advice of one. Note: Being refused for a visitor's visa is not one of them. It is not an issue in dealing with K-1 or K-3 visa's. Every one has been refused at least once in dealing with that visa.(visitor's) in China. You can do this yourself you just need to have on hand what GUZ needs and desires at that time. AN example would be proof of relationship. Telephone bills,Letters through snail mail, Internet message's Gift cards. And on and on and on.

[C4Racer]

Then my wife¡¯s relatives got involved and made a big thing about how things can go wrong.

 

Yes, and things can go wrong when you drive in America. Do you have a chauffer?

The percentage of people who need a lawyer is very low. Say you are one of the unlucky one's that need one. The lawyer you hired in the US will do you no good. You still will need to hire one in GUZ if you have to fight a white slip and want to be successful quickly. Keep the money. All you are doing is filling out forms, adding evidence and submitting documents. You will spend the same amount of time collecting this information for a laywer or paralegal. And then half of them do it wrong or have other problems that can cause you big delays.

[Jay & Ping]

I have to echo the same opinion of those here.

I hired a lawyer before finding Candle. I talked to an attorney once and the rest of the time it was their paralegal. They were reputable and responsive - no complaints there. The difficulty came when they advised me on one issue. The one I thought would be difficult for us.

Their advice caused us a blue slip at interview.

If you don't hire an attorney the family will be upset. If you do and they make a mistake, the family will be upset... Best scenario, find a lawyer at a reasonable rate (less than $2000), study candle closely. Find a few here that have a lot of experience and double check all the stuff the attorney tells you. If you can convince the family that you have a nework of experienced friends that have ben through the process - great, you save the attorney's fees. Tell them you would rather spend the two grand on them. Good Luck!

[lostinblue]

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.ph...ire+an+attorney

[warpedbored]

Even with a lawyer or paralegal you still have to do all the leg work collecting information and getting documents. Once you gather all the information you give it to your lawyer and they have their staff fill out the forms. Then you need to check and double check their work because they can and do make mistakes. might as well do it yourself and save the money. If you hire a stateside lawyer and you run into a problem in Guangzhou your lawyer won't know the ins and outs of the consulate. As long as I have been a member of this board I have never seen any convincing evidence that using a lawyer has any better success rate than doing it yourself.

[clayton2103]

I was lucky enough to find CFL months prior to beginning any paperwork and I also debated using a lawyer. But, with all the help I received here, I didn't spend a dime on a lawyer.

 

Yes...I did spend numerous hours preparing all, but like most have stated you will need to spend nearly the same amount of time gathering all documents, etc., and double, if not triple checking all they are doing for you...at your expense!

I have read of success with lawyers, yet I have read even more of the mistakes, delays and more that have caused issues throughout the process.

 

Plain and simple...our hearts are in it, theirs are not!

 

Clayton

Edited June 29, 2008 by clayton2103 (see edit history)

[jim_julian]

As a calibration point on cost ... I hired a Chinese-American immigration lawyer in SoCal who was quite good for $1700 for a K-1. She was fluent in Mandarin, knew GZ, and was a pleasure to work with.

 

I agree, however, that you really don't need a lawyer unless you have unusual circumstances or unusual luck!

[shanghaigale]

My opinion is that you shouldn't need a lawyer at all for filling out the paperwork. Almost all of the forms are as straightforward as any job application you will fill out. Most of them are no more than 2 pages long and pretty easy to figure out what goes in the blanks (If you have questions ask CFL). The hard and time consuming part is getting all the supporting documentation and proper information to fill in the blanks with. A lawyer won't help you with this at all. That will be up to you. All the lawyer will do is have his paralegal fill it out for you then charge you a huge amount. I don't think I spent more than an hour filling out any of the forms but getting documents like police reports from Singapore, notorizations done, etc. My wifes and my relatives statistics took a large amount of time and effort to finally obtain. Although in retrospect even that didn't take a lot of time, the time really was spent waiting for the results to get to you. Once you had all the answers, the forms were a piece of cake to fill out. I doubt if I spent over two days total on filling out all the forms from visa to citizenship for my wife. Getting the information, making copies, getting notorizations done, etc. took much more time.

Gale

 

 

Any suggestion for lawyers ( Attorney ) for K3 in Northern California.

 

Hello after looking and trying to read required documents, I have decided to find a lawyer. This is after read some of the horror stories that might go wrong and relatives. At first, I was trying to do most of the work like filling out the forum and just hiring a paralegal that specialize in immigration. The paralegal can help with the finer details of the paperwork. I was planning to get a K1 since it is faster but now we got married. It's a K3 now. The cost was reasonable, like 100 to 175USD for a paralegal.

 

Then my wife¡¯s relatives got involved and made a big thing about how things can go wrong. Well, if anyone can suggest ( recommend ) a lawyer in the San Francisco Bay Area please post the information. I can fill out most of the paperwork myself but need some advice to get it right the first time and not wait several years of red tape or white slip.

 

 

I have already did a search for lawyer and read the following link:

 

http://candleforlove.com/forums/index.php?...6&hl=Lawyer

 

Thanks¡­..