gabrielo

I am looking to apply for an E-1 Treaty Trader visa. My company and I seem to meet the criteria on the US embassy website, and I am putting together the required information.

My question (one of them anyway), is do I need to hire a lawyer to handle this? The fees quoted seem exorbitant, and I am still required to put together most of the information myself.

I acknowledge that the procedure is not straight forward, and guidance online is not always easy to follow as it blurs the E-1 & E-2 applications most of the time.

How hard is it?

ian-mstm

No, there's no need to hire a lawyer... in the same manner as there's no need to hire an accountant to do your taxes. However, many people feel comfortable letting a professional take the lead. For example, how do you define "substantial" and "sizeable"?


Professional help is often expensive. Largely, it's the cost of doing business. It's up to you, of course, but there's two things a lawyer can do that you may not be able to: 1) put the best spin on the information you present; and 2) be aware of any pitfalls or nuances in the law that might cause you problems down the road.

Ian

Steve_

If you've got experience doing business plans then no you don't need a lawyer, but you need to be totally familiar with the regulations, which are contained in 8 CFR 214.2(e)

The problem with E-1 and E-2 is that there is a lot of fuzzy definitions in the regulations. For example with E-1 you must be engaged in "substantial trade", which is very vague, the regulations give some detail but one consular officer can have a different opinion to another. There are also big differences between applying through, say the consulate in Vancouver and the embassy in London.

I know for a fact that people in Canada have gotten E-2 with "significant investments" that would be unlikely to be get approval through London.

I've only ever met one person who had E-1, he had a business exporting horses from the US and taking horses into the US for slaughter, which is not something you'd be doing if you came from the UK.

My point being that an immigration consultant (which is what they are if they're in the UK almost certainly, whatever legal qualifications they've got I seriously doubt they've ever shown up in a US immigration court) has more experience with the local embassy/consulate and the local staff there.

yum2yum

If you have any kind of serious business, why would you not? Which is the question I would be asking if I was the consular officer!

Steve_

CO doesn't care if you used a lawyer, they care if you give them the right paperwork. Who prepared it is irrelevant.

I personally think immigration consultants are way overrated. Friend of mine from NZ describes them as the intermediate form of life between bacteria and used cars salesmen.

They're just experienced form fillers really. At least in this context.

E-1 and E-2 being by far the most complicated non-immigrant categories I would say this is definitely one of the times to think about using one though, just make sure they know what they're doing.

SkyblueSimon

I've just been approved (last week) for a 5 year E1 Visa. I must say the paperwork is quite extensive and I did use an immigration firm in London to put together the details. I would have made numerous errors had I done this myself as much of it is knowledge of the application process and what counts as relevant.

I would say that once that lawyers had done their work we ended up with a 262 page binder containing information and evidence to support our entitlement to the E1 Visa.

No requests for further information were made by the US Embassy in London and my interview took less than 5 minutes. I feel if I had put this together myself the interview would have been much more intense and perhaps the application would have gone through more scrutiny.

If I were to do it again I would pay a professional team to put together the application.

ian-mstm

I suggest you mean "to support our application..." as there is never an entitlement to a visa.


Good observation! Congratulations on getting the visa!

Ian

SkyblueSimon

You're absolutely right Ian - no such thing as an entitlement to a visa! Thanks for the correction and for the Congrats ;-)

Simon

tantrum

I obtained an E1 visa from the London embassy last year. You can shop around for lawyers (both in the UK or US) as the prices vary wildly. My supporting binder was also large and I doubt I could have prepared it all myself in a timely manner. I claimed it as a business expense similar to the way I treat my accountant's fees.