I'm looking for a lawer for immigration to Canada. Does anyone know one?

Don't bother with a lawyer, do it yourself that's my advice.
If you're reasonably intelligent you can easily cope with the paper work.
Lawyers charge a fortune, $3000 US when I checked it out and frankly
they do very little.
I did it myself and I got in.

If yours is a reasonably straight forward case, i.e., if either you or your spouse would be able to get into Canada as a skilled migrant (using the points system), I agree that you can walk yourself through the required paperwork. My husband is an electrical engineer, and we did all of the paperwork ourselves.

A lawyer can be invaluable if your case is more complicated, e.g., if you don't have a university degree and don't belong to a profession that is in demand in Canada and are attempting to get into the country as an entrepreneur.

My brother-in-law got into Canada that way. Although my BIL lives in Toronto, he used the services of an immigration lawyer who was located in Vancouver. The lawyer knew tricks that my BIL never would have thought of, and my BIL considered him to be worth his weight in gold.

One of the "tricks" that the lawyer suggested was that my BIL and SIL lodge their application in Lisbon, Portugal. They lived in Johannesburg, South Africa, and their first instinct would have been to lodge their application at the Canadian Embassy in Pretoria. However, the Pretoria embassy was swamped with applications, whereas the Lisbon embassy was a quiet backwater by comparison. My BIL and SIL's application was processed more quickly than they had been led to believe it would be. In hindsight they attributed that to their lawyer's advice to lodge their application in Lisbon. They were happy that their application was speeded up, so much so that they didn't mind paying for their flights from Johannesburg to Lisbon and back.

Although the lawyer's fees were pretty high (something like $5,000 as I recall, and that was several years ago), my BIL considered the fees to be cheap, considering the level of service he received.

Here is a web site that provides links to information on immigration:

http://www.vancouver.hm/immigralinks.html

The individual who publishes that web site, British expat and Vancouver resident Paul Beddows, states that he has heard good things about a Toronto-based immigration lawyer called Stephen Green who can be reached at telephone 416-862-7880 and e-mail <[email protected]> . I did a Google search, and found that Green is a partner in a firm called Green and Spiegel, and its web site is http://www.gands.com .

Hope that helps.

Edited to add a point that has been made on this forum before. Hiring a lawyer does not relieve you of the mountain of paperwork that is required to apply for admission to another country. Although we didn't use an immigration lawyer when we came to Canada, my husband's employer provided us with the services of immigration lawyers when the company sent us on expat assignments to the USA and Australia. In order for the lawyer to be able to do his/her job, he/she still requires the prospective immigrant to provide heaps of documentation.

Incidentally this "trick" no longer works. From 1 May 2003 there is a rule in place saying that you need to apply at the CIC office serving your country of citizenship or place to which you have been legally admitted for at least 12 months.

So people with one citizenship living in their home country have no choice of office. People with dual citizenship or those living overseas may still have a choice, but it's unusual for an applicant to be able to select from more than two (or at most, three) CIC offices.

If you must choose a professional to assist you - incidentally it doesn't need to be a lawyer - you should select only a Canadian lawyer or a member of the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants. Effective April 1, 2004, CIC will not deal with consultants outside these groups.

Jeremy

Thanks for the clarification on that point, Jeremy.

But I stand by my opinion that, in certain situations, an experienced immigration consultant can be extremely useful.

Another occasion on which we experienced that was when we were bound for our expat assignment in the United States.

When a person is heading for the U.S. on an H1B visa, as my husband was doing, he/she has to bring his/her paperwork with him/her to the U.S. port of entry, and it is the immigration official at that port of entry who grants or denies the application to enter the U.S. for the purpose of working there. At least that was how the system operated when we relocated to the U.S. in 1995.

The immigration lawyer in Houston told my husband that there was a supervisor amongst the U.S. immigration staff at Calgary airport who was the immigration official from hell, and under no circumstances should he attempt to enter the U.S. from Calgary Airport. The immigration lawyer said that, if he did that, his application almost certainly would be denied, or at least there was a high risk that it would be denied. The Houston lawyer advised my husband to access the U.S. from Edmonton Airport instead, as it was known to have quite a benign U.S. immigration staff (at least that reportedly was the case back then). The Houston lawyer also advised my husband to access the U.S. only from Edmonton Airport and from no other point of entry that was reasonably close to us. (She also advised against Vancouver Airport, for example.)

My husband believed the lawyer's description of the "bulldog" at Calgary Airport, but he thought that the land border between Alberta and Montana surely wouldn't be too bad. So he hopped into his car on a Saturday, and drove down to the Montana border. There the immigration official refused to admit him to the U.S.!

My husband turned around and drove home to Calgary. As soon as he reached home, he got on the phone and booked a Calgary - Edmonton - Denver - Houston flight for the following morning (Sunday). On a seperate ticket, he booked a flight from Denver directly to Calgary for Sunday afternoon.

On Sunday morning he duly flew to Edmonton, presented himself to U.S. immigration officials with his one-way ticket to Houston (where his job was going to be based). They accepted his application and stamped his passport. He boarded the Houston-bound flight, but climbed off it when it stopped to pick up more passengers in Denver. He then flew back to Calgary on the other flight that he had booked on a separate ticket.

Once my husband had that magical stamp in his passport, he was able to travel back and forth between Canada and the U.S. for work purposes, and our kids and I were able to join him and settle in Houston.

The H1B stamp in my husband's passport was very important because, until we had that, there were bridges that we were not willing to burn in Canada. For example, I was not willing to jeopardise my own job in Calgary until I was sure my husband would be able to take up the position in Houston.

Anyway, from then onwards our attitude has been that advice that an experienced immigration consultant provides is not to be taken lightly. Also, while it may seem that you as the applicant do most of the legwork and you may wonder what the immigration consultant does to earn his/her fee, in certain situations the immigration consultant may help you to avoid a single mistake that may doom your chances of being admitted to another country.

Personally I would say that you won't need one.

I remember wondering exactly the same question as yourself but having completed the process and recieved my visa I have to say that it's fairly straightforward. All that is required is to fill in the appropriate froms using the provided guides as a help.

So unless you have a particulary complicated set of circumstances I would go solo - besides, with such excellent people around on this forum you're sure to get some sound advice free of charge on here!

Best wishes

Q of Q

Welcome to the boards all new people!!

The only rider I would add about advice from the boards is that it can be extremely conflicting. Some people's experiences are vastly different from others', and some people may have out-dated info or be just plain mistaken, so check and check again is my advice!

Its so easy just to accept the advice you really wanted to hear anyway!

Good luck!

Hi there, just finished gathering all the documentation, just waiting on bankers draft from bank, it would have to be a bank holiday in the UK on Monday.

We are using an immigration lawyer who is based in Toronto
They seem pretty efficient up until this point
A lot of folk say that you should be able to do paperwork yourself, but I have had invaluable advice from my lawyer that I cannot find on any CIC web sites.
We are using him for total piece of mind to ensure our application will not be returned due to any abnormalities in the application.

The lawyer we are using is http://www.akcanada.com/index.html

ABRAMS AND KROCHAK

Try their online self assesment, see how you get on with it !!!!

And their fees are very reasonable to, not like some people who are charging thousands

Eddie

Yep. We have used Abrams & Krochak for a businesss immigration application and have found them very professional. Sure you can manage the process yourself and the people who advocete 'doing it yourself' are absolutely correct. However we can only speak for our case and having been in the process of selling a business and property plus having a son moving school decided on the lawyer route. Its certainly not necessary for everyone but the cost to us was very marginal given the whole 'move to canada' process.

Interview 10th Feb passed
Medical 15th March fine
Hope to land BC May/June

Good luck

I agree that the minimal cost involved outways the chance of getting into Canada without any problems
I have mailed my lawyer loads of times, for reassurance, for general queries, they have always been there,
I have even phoned them and spoke personally with the main men, Peter and Jeffrey, who seem very nice guys.
I could have done the application myself, but the wifey and I decided that we would use a lawyer for pure piece of mind and a trouble free application

So good luck to all who did not use the services of a specialist and good luck to all who did use the specialists

Eddie from a very cold and rainy Glasgow, as I am at work just now chancing my luck on the interent !!!!!!!!!!!1