Matthew Udall

I believe some attorneys do charge a pretty penny for their consultations (after all, when performing that service they are assuming responsibilities, they owe duties, they are exposing themselves to potential liabilities, and there is usually going to be time consuming record keeping required to memorialize what was discussed during the consultation) however I believe there are also some reasonable consultation fees being charged.

I only charge $75.00 for a "typical" consultation, and that usually takes from 45 minutes to an hour to perform this service (with additional time after the call is through being spent sending the bill, creating the record of what was discussed, putting the consultation client into the office system, etc). I don't charge again if the caller has a quick follow up question or needs me to explain something over again (however the free follow up call is not meant to be a repeat of the hour long consultation all over again). And if someone comes back to me later to hire me for immigration work, I usually end up crediting the entire $75.00 consultation fee towards that later work.

For situations that fall outside of a typical “consultation�, I can also perform that service at an hourly rate if the caller is interested in that arrangement. For example, someone who wanted me to examine all of their forms and evidence to make sure mistakes are not made on the forms and that the case is well documented, “issue spot� to see if I can spot any potential problem issue and what I recommend as to how to best deal with that potentially problematic situation, give tips on how to best present their materials to the USCIS and what they can do once the case is submitted and after its been approved by the USCIS to try to get it through the Consulate as quickly as possible, etc (I recently performed that service for someone, and two hours was really not quite enough time for us to cover all of these things… and while performing that service I spotted 3 issues that I thought increased her odds of receiving an RFE from her service center, and told her what to do to reduce the odds, IMHO, of getting an RFE).

Of course, since I don’t troll for business in the group, I wouldn’t want the OP to call me, but I’m confident that he or she can find a qualified AILA attorney who could perform a consultation at a reasonable rate.

Matthew Udall

Some visas require the person using it to have non-immigrant intent while entering, while there are other types of visas that allow someone to enter who might have immigrant intent. Since there are so many different types of visas and since I’ve not had the opportunity to perform a consultation for this person (don’t know anything about her facts), I’ll leave it at that instead of going through each visa category one by one.

My focus is immigration law so yes, I know quite a bit about this. Many of my clients entered the U.S. with something other than a K-1 visa.

Perhaps it’s just the “attorney� in me, but I’m very careful about using the term “specializing�. My focus is on immigration law, and family based immigration law in particular (which encompasses more that just marriage cases), but I also do other types of cases from time to time (Employment, Battered Immigrant, even a little work before the Immigration Court and the Board of Immigration Appeals). I’m licensed in the state of California, and California offers a “certificate of specialization� for a few different areas of the law, including immigration.

I don’t generally do enough of the other types of cases (defense in immigration court for example) to sit for the exam (to obtain a certificate of specialization), however I don’t need such a certificate to bring experience and attention to detail to my clients cases, and I’ll bet I’ve done more K and AOS work that most attorneys holding such a certificate (and I’ll bet most of those attorney have more experience than I in other areas of immigration law… for example, in representing clients before the immigration court).

M.U.

J

Aitana <member@british_expats.com> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
    > Thanks to all of you for your answers, they helped me a lot!!
    >
    > I´m still confused about one thing. If we try to avoid the K1 or K3 long
    > process and we get married while I am here under my visa waiver program,
    > I would have to prove that I didn´t get into the country with the
    > intention of marrying my boyfriend, right? People are telling that this
    > is actually very dangerous and they can banned me for 10 years. But how
    > can they prove that that was your intention. Because, actually, it was
    > not my intention, but my boyfriend proposed me. I don´t know, is it
    > really that risky? should i forget about this option?
    >
    >
    >
    > Thanks again!

This is actually EXACTLY what happened to us. My fiance is Spanish, I
am American, and we got engaged a few weeks ago. He is here on the
Visa Waver Program. We had not intended to get married now, but have
been weighing options as far as what is best for us, his ability to
work, etc.

We ended up talking to a couple of lawyers--many of them give their
first consultation for fre--and will tell you the advantages and
disadvantages of each option.

I dont know where in the US you are located, but I can give you the
lawyers that I talked to (they are in Atlanta). One of them speaks
Spanish, and the other one does not.

Feel free to contact me off-line if you want their info or want to
chat more.

suerte!
jen

Aitana

Hi, Jen
Si! I would like to chat more! Thanks for offering me the contact information of those lawyers, but we actually are in San Francisco, so I maybe we should better find one here.
So, based on what they told you, this option of trying to avoid the k1 and k3 process is worth trying or too risky? What are you going to do?
We´ll definately go to see a lawyer if the first consultation is free.
Thanks a lot! Here is my email: [email protected].

Take care and good luck!