YYZlover

It's YYZlover but who cares.

Anyway - I stand corrected. Still I think Andrew raises a valid point by saying what he says so someone here doesn't go off and hire a corporate lawyer to do the job.

Also, don't think I've ever said anything about being able to switch off and leave everything to the lawyer. Why else would I be here if I was planning on doing that?

g_is_for_canada

Actually this is a really good point. My lawyer DID make mistakes which I spotted, and would have set me back quite a bit if they'd gone unnoticed. I was a little disappointed that his happened, and would expect more. However, at the end of the day, I feel I came off better with a lawyer than without, but you're right, it doesn't absolve the need to double and triple check.

live to ski

Thanks g_i_f_c

Team work is what it should be about. You know your personal / relationship / employment history better than anyone else.

Immigration lawyers / consultants know how to put a strong case together for CIC.

Despite Andrew's accusation that I am lacking in intelligence / common-sense or whatever else he implied that meant that I let my company hire a corporate lawyer to do immigration law, I obviously have enough sense to realise that things were being left too late and put a good enough case together to get us PR in 6 months.

g_is_for_canada

It's amazing how many time we see the rationale "Mine's a straightforward case, so no need to have representation", on this thread. Perhaps some people think everyone else is Hanibel Lecter or an Al Quaeda terrorist, so when immigration get their applications, they'll think "Wooppeee a normal, straightforward case".

In reality, despite how straightforward people think their cases are, they rarely ARE actually straightforward. So using this as justification for doing it yourself is challenging your ability to know in advance that your case is straightforward, when this is probably your first application.

live to ski

Thank you - I'm looking forward to Andrew's appology!

But this thread is about "Why use an Immigration Lawyer", so other than mis-reading my post, no-one ever said to use a corproate lawyer, but good to point out not to.

I know you haven't said that, but I get the feeling people will read between the lines on here, and see Andrew etc. saying that an immigation lawyer / consultant will make the best case, hence you can switch off. As g_canada pointed out, although theirs made a good case, there were still mistakes.

All I have wanted to do all along on this thread, and others where I written about the problems I had with our immigration lawyer is warn people that if they do hire one, still keep on top of things. For us it was doing our research on the possible routes, and also keep up-to-date on timeslines, for when our previous WP ran out.

YYZlover

Well, that reading between the lines you mentioned is something I think a lot of people do. We could write a book about the pros and cons of using a consultant/lawyer and there would still be people out there who think they don't need one when they do and vise versa.

I think everyone should at least consult someone first. I did spend half an hour with one two years ago who did say I didn't need him but he could help me.

Spending a year researching I know I will need one no matter what anyone tells me.Two years ago, maybe I didn't. Today I do. That is my choice.

If I waste my money - my choice. If I decide to risk it and go DIY - still my choice. But because I have spent the time researching my options and best way to get there, at least I can make an educated choice.

bazzz

Over 70% of the people on this forum who are in Canada did so without the "help" of a consultant or lawyer. That suggests to me that there are plenty of straightforward cases, or at least no so difficult that they needed paid help.

BristolUK

Is there a link to that survey? I'm interested in anything else that was asked.

bazzz

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=508093

BristolUK

Thanks for the link Bazzz.

I thought there may have been more to it. And a bigger sample too. About 100 out of how many members of this site in Canada?

It would be interesting to know the split on refusals. But we never will.

Andrew Miller

If you feel being offended then I apologize, it wasn't my intention.

But I must repeat - jack of all trades is a master of none.

I'm in this business since '91 (and I have law degree too, but practice as consultant BTW) and am cooperating and/or am associated with number of large law firms long enough to know that large law firms in Canada specialize in just one field. There are two kinds of them though.

Most will always claim that they can do everything else too. A corporate law firm may have on staff a lawyer (or law student) who is assisting once in a while in immigration matters or moved there from immigration firm because immigration law wasn't his/her thing anyway - and they will always proudly call it "our immigration law department" or something alike, no matter what experience and how many cases under the belt their "immigration lawyer" may have.

Some (relatively small percentage though) of firms specializing in other than immigration law will tell you - "we don't do immigration law but will put you in touch with firm dealing exclusively with immigration, firm we do business with for years".

It seems to me that despite amount of research you've done you are a victim of the former kind of law firm. Your experience proved that lawyer dealing with your immigration matters had none or at best a very little experience with immigration matters, wasn't up to date with ever changing procedures and options and simply learned on the job.

And you shouldn't feel that my comments were in any way aimed to criticize you, your intelligence or abilities. My comments were intended as a warning to others who may get into similar troubles you did by using wrong firm.

Andrew Miller

Please at least try not to take it again as insult.

How did you exactly research this immigration lawyer of yours? Where "on paper she looks fantastic"? Who's paper?

I'm not trying to insult your intelligence here, but there are claims you can independently verify and claims you can't verify. The latter you must always take with a lot of skepticism. Just as I am expressing my skepticism here without any intention to offend you.

CIC can't tell you how many cases she filed nor what is her success/failure rate.

How do you know how many immigration cases this law firm handles each year? Probably only from what they told you and/or from their own literature. There is no way to independently verify it.

live to ski

I never said that I found out how many cases she handled.

Yes, I read their propaganda aka their literature and website. On their company website, under "areas of practice" she is there under "immigration", along with all their other immigration lawyers and their corporate lawyers are under "corporate law". But I also Googled her, and read all the various papers she has had published on immigration law at a variety of conferences, news articles, where she had been quoted etc. All seemed to be independent sources, and not just her or her company planting things on Googled. I personally found it reassuring when her name came up on Google that all the top few articles were on immigration matters, and no, I didn't put immigration in the search. Whereas if she practised all areas of law, I would have thought that a variety of articles would have come up in any did at all, and she wouldn't have been under "immigration law" on their website.

I'm am sure she is a very good immigration lawyer if she is being challenged / interested in the case / being paid enough or whatever other reason she messed up on us, but she did not handle us as clients and our case very well.

Whereas I, doing DIY, did our case just fine, and by that I mean we got PR in 6 months. Maybe you could have done it better for us?

I work in engineering consultancy. Just because my company consults in a whole range of engineering areas, you are saying that we "jack of all trades master of none". Whereas we have some extremely specialist people, who only work in their very specialist area of engineering. But I am sure there are engineering consultancies who are jack of all trades, but some research will tell you what type of projects they have worked on.

So if you are saying that there is no way to check how good an immigration lawyer / consultant is, then if people are savvy, do their research, ask questions on here, then aren't people probably safer doing DIY, rather than risking a bad immigration lawyer / consultant and wasting their money? I know some say that they have a money back guarantee but if they are rejected, then they’ve wasted both the time and the application fee, just to get a refund from the lawyer / consultant.

Andrew Miller

Sounds (although it may be an unlikely coincident) like a quite well known immigration lawyer in Vancouver who I personally met few times, lawyer who in addition to tons of publications and positive recognitions in the field, solid experience in teaching law, etc. unfortunately also has quite a record (which you couldn't find about) of procrastinating, forgetting about clients, missing deadlines, not presenting other options, sitting on complete package for several months and longer without submitting it, etc..

As you probably know there are 3 groups of professionals in any field:

1. those who can teach but cannot practice well what they teach;

2. those who perform extremely well in their field, but cannot teach or pass their expertise to others; and

3. extremely rare breed of those who can do and can teach well what they do.


Like I said - it may be a coincident, but I would be surprised to find another female lawyer in Vancouver with similar outstanding record of articles and other publications and at the same time getting similar negative comments/reviews from her clients. She definitely belongs to the first group above.

I myself had few clients who after firing her have retained my services. Some of my colleagues in Vancouver were also retained by former clients of the otherwise quite charming and very knowledgeable in immigration matters lady.

If it is same person then I completely understand how you may have been fooled and what you went through.

live to ski

That sounds just like her - particluarly the not presenting all options, and forgetting about clients. I think our case was just too "easy" for her. Still unsure why she was anti BC PNP.


Thank-you. For some reason, only due to what you write on here and how you present your business, I hold you in some high regard, hence being so offended*.

I am now off to meet up with Mr L2S who thinks I am wonderful, and not just because I got him back to Vancouver, and got him PR here! And as Sheila Hancock said when John Thaw died "no man is ever going to think that I am the most beautiful and wonderful woman in the world again"

*if anyone wants to offend me, they now know to say that I can't research and have no common sense, but I have to have some respect for you to start with!