A good immigration lawyer can be your saving grace in a trying time, whereas a poor immigration attorney can cost you a lot of money and leave you in the same spot you started in. It’s not always easy determining who’s a good lawyer and who’s a bad one.
If you’re in a situation where you’re in need of legal aid and you aren’t sure how to find a good immigration lawyer, keep these tips in mind.
Stay Away From Floaters
If you’re in an immigration office and a lawyer approaches you and offers their private services, it would be in your best interest to hastily decline. While it might seem like an angel just fell from the heavens to help you, these lawyers are often a bad bet. They’re commonly referred to as “high volume, low value” lawyers because there might be a lot of them, but they don’t provide you with any worthwhile legal expertise. They scrounge for business, and with roughly 43.3 million foreign-born people in the United States, they don’t have to work very hard to find it.
Make Sure They’re a Real Lawyer
While it’s important to hire an actual lawyer and not someone pretending to be one, a “real” lawyer, in this case, is referring to someone who practices the law. Often, a Notario, Petition Preparer, or Visa Consultant are confused for genuine legal practitioners. While some of these people might have your best interest at heart and may do their best to help you, they are no substitute for an experienced immigration lawyer.
Do Your Research
One of your biggest assets when figuring out how to find a good immigration lawyer is to use the internet. Of course, you should only pay attention to credible sources. If you’ve found a lawyer you can probably search them on the American Immigration Lawyers’ Association website, which is where many of the best lawyers in the field are listed. You should also look up reviews online as well. Sometimes they won’t all be great (not every lawyer wins every time, and sometimes that makes people upset), but if they have a decent track record and don’t have any comments about misconduct, then they’re probably a safe bet.
Dealing with immigration can be tough, and without the proper legal representation, it can be a losing battle. You should feel out a couple of different attorneys and pick the one that you feel is best for your case.
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