albertabound

Hi everyone,
Maybe I am letting off steam but I felt I had to write this down.
We employed an immigration law firm in April this year for SW visa. I must admit to being totally green and very trusting of them.
At my initial phone call I told them our occupations and asked about PNP only to be told that we would be better with a SW visa.
Ok, we paid our money incl. all landing fees as they said this would be quickest. They told us to expect a wait of 12 to 18 months for Visas.
Not once did they mention the LIST to us.
We found out about said list in September when we received a file number.
The only communication from the lawyer since then was an email after this to tell us to keep looking on their website for news.
We then decided to look for jobs etc ourselves.
My husband had an interview and job offer in October so we are going TWP then PNP which for us is great.
When my husband was in Canada he had a couple of offers from people that his uncle knew " if this would help him". They had'nt even met him but were willing to help on their friends say so.
I just wanted to highlight the kindness and friendliness he received at that time - people willing to go an extra mile.
As for the lawyers, I do feel totally uninformed by them. They must have known about the list and the wait.
We will be getting our application returned at some point as we are not on said list.
Sorry for such a long post

Tina

christmasoompa

Sorry to hear you've been so let down Tina. Does your husband's uncle actually live in Alberta?

albertabound

Hi Christmas, yes he does. We have only met him twice though.

tinytears

Hmmmm, don't set me off on immigration attorneys right now. My advice to anyone browsing is .... don't do it, don't use them!

I wonder if we have the same attorney, my story is long and hard and I'm not ready to spill my guts on them but be very very wary of whether you will get the CIC fees back (never mind the attorney fees) as your occupation isn't on "the list". I would advise anyone who has a PR application being returned for an occupation "not on the list" to check what happens with the fees as you may be unpleasantly surprised by the answer.

albertabound

Hi Heidi

I have not said which firm it is because some members are still using them.
PM me if you would like to converse, I have plenty nore to say lol

Tina

Auld Yin

I've used this line before:-

What do you call 100 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?

A good start.

christmasoompa

Then I'm slightly confused as to why your immigration lawyers haven't just suggested he sponsors you via the PNP?? Surely that would have been the easiest and quickest route by far?!?

Auld Yin

It's like riding in a cab, the quickest and easiest route is not necessarily the most profitable for the cabbie (read lawyer).

christmasoompa

I clearly have more faith in lawyers than you, I'm assuming there is a good reason that they haven't suggested that route to the OP. It's not that I believe all lawyers to be inherently good people (although some are), just that I don't believe any lawyer would be stupid enough to risk being done for professional misconduct by suggesting a worse/longer/harder visa route for their client solely to accrue more fees.

ann m

Sorry - I'm confused. Are you saying your job descriptions were not on the list anyway? In which case, maybe your lawyer knew that would not be an option ? It may have been clearer for them to outline other routes in, but if the List would not have assisted anyway ..... ?

albertabound

Hi

We could not be sponsored by our uncle because he has a son in Canada.
My beef about the lawyer is that
1. they did not mention the list to us even though they must have known about it.
2. They did not tell us that our application would remain unopened until the list was published.
3. when I asked about pnp they told us it would take much longer than SW.
We are not on the published list but have now got LMO and job offer which we pursued totally on our own.
We have been very green here and really took their advise without checking anything. We thought we were paying them to do the best for us.
I suppose I would tell others to still check other avenues even when employing a law firm.
Tina

albertabound

Hi Anne
they dismissed all other routes except the SW which is now totally ruled by the list.
Tina

tinytears

Our lawyers did the same, they told us there would be changes and just as I signed up with them they sent a generic email saying that the rules were changing "but they are confident in our skills and abilities" but if we wanted out we could do without further obligation at that point - we hadn't even submitted when this email came through and the fact that their opening paragraph of a very long email stated they were confident in our application and had no reason to believe it wouldn't be successful we continued using them. We were really niave and green at that point, because we took that on face value.

We ended up finding our own route in which the lawyers advised against time and again and yet were prepared to charge us an additional $2.5K to look over the application for us before it was submitted (despite them admitting this isn't their area of expertise), we declined their kind offer - especially given that we are working closely with several Canadian agencies on our application who have given us no end of help, support and encouragement.

Hey ho, as they say you live and learn. Just wish it hadn't cost us so much money to live and learn.

christmasoompa

Makes no difference, he could sponsor you via the Alberta PNP (Family Stream) if you/he meet the criteria.

http://www.albertacanada.com/immigra...ilystream.html

albertabound

[QUOTE=christmasoompa;7060593]Makes no difference, he could sponsor you via the Alberta PNP (Family Stream) if you/he meet the criteria.

Yes I know but that stream only started in June of this year and we applied in April.