We want you to feel you are making the right choice when you contact Lang Wallace — to handle your family, business or corporate immigration needs. The following excerpts from a previously published article called “Picking Your Experts” advising potential clients on how to be sure to pick the right expert to handle your case.
Furthermore, we assure our prospective clients from an ethical standpoint, that we will not try to keep you if we cannot do the work; you will be given a referral to another firm if your work does not fall within our scope of expertise.
Picking Your Immigration Experts
To choose the best immigration legal services provider for your matter, know what to look for in your attorney and law firm.
1. Immigration Specialty Area. We are a law firm that specializes in immigration AND in only take cases when we know your type of immigration problem. Even when consulting with a great immigration law firm, make sure the attorney you use has experience having handled your type of case.
2. Responsiveness. Make sure the firm you choose gets back to you and defines what they will do for you in short order. At Lang Wallace, we will outline a plan for you immediately and send you the appropriate questionnaire to proceed. Our consultations (some free and many specific ones for a fee) clearly start a course of action. Your attorney should be able to clearly explain to you why certain areas require further investigation and how long it will take.
3. Fees. Keep in mind that there are always three main fees in your immigration representation: the legal fee to the firm, incidentals for mailing/copies/translations, and the filing fees to the government. Consider whether your case will do better with a Flat Fee pricing structure (typical in immigration law) or being run on an hourly basis. Individual prices for family matters are consistent across clients. And companies should ask us for our Corporate Immigration Fee Schedule!
4. Representation of Interests. In business and family immigration legal cases, understand that the attorney normally represents the interests of two separate parties (you and the U.S. sponsor) vis-à-vis the government. This is called dual representation. Make sure that the firm doing the work represents and understands your interests, and that you are getting information regarding your case.
5. Communication/IT Tools. Your immigration law firm should have an IT communication and databasing tool that tracks certain critical information.
6. Good Lawyering. Don’t forget to check the credentials of the law firm. Immigration law, in the complexity as it exists today, is broad and riddled with sloppy lawyering. Has the firm been around for 10+ years, have they seen the immigration landscape grow and change? Is the attorney a member of AILA, the American Immigration Lawyers Association www.aila.org? Does the managing attorney have a solid background including a reputable law school and identifiable work experience?
7. Adequate staff and Attention. While any family immigration matter requires no more than one attorney, consider the advantages and disadvantages of having an attorney who relies on capable paralegals to organize the details of your matter. As us about our capacity to adequately and efficiently handle your immigration needs. Larger corporate immigration programs require several immigration lawyers and paralegals to handle the corporation’s volume of cases. But at Lang Wallace, we keep our work tailored to the size of the immigration matters that we can handle. A larger law firm is not ideal for family immigration matters – attention counts.
Friendly Reminder: Provide your counsel with thorough information.
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Please do not hesitate to call Ms. Christina Wallace to discuss your current immigration matters. With over 25 years of immigration experience in highly respected law firms serving many types of individuals and companies, your assessment will be worthwhile. Christina Wallace, 703-531-0790, christy@langwallace.com.
