please advice on changing lawyer

G

grncrdskr

Registered Users (C)
I am in the process of applying for my I-485 in April/08 and my lawyer is telling me that she will be busy until the third week of April/08 and she could not promise me to submit my application before the end of Aprill/08 but she will try to this time. She have promised me submission dates in the past for I-485 and when the date gets nearer she keeps on delaying and moving the dates further down the calendar and I missed the I-485 submission on last year July/07. Moreover, she does not like me following up on my case. She gives me condescending, negative and rude remarks. There were many incidents that could have jeopardize my GC process. Currently, I am worried that the priority dates may change or retrogress in May and so I am thinking of changing the lawyer or submitting the I-485 application myself. My priority dates are current now.

My first question is how do I change my lawyer in a friendly and peaceful terms? My employer okéd my request to switch attorney. What are the important documents that I have to procure or get from my lawyer before I let her go? I do not want her to mess around with my case and documents in a vindictive way in the future. Can the lawyers do that? Is there any horror story due to changing the lawyers? What is a formal process to terminate the current lawyer from representing me?

My second question is it advisable and doable to submit my own I-485 application or recommended using an attorney. Could someone please share their good or bad experience submitting their own I-485? This will give me time to prepare the application thoroughly and check and recheck to make sure that all the required documents are submitted. This will give me a piece of mind in waiting days. Thank you in advance for all the responses.
 
You need to get rid of that lawyer now and get another, he (she) is screwing with your life, if you are current now you should be filing now, waiting only endures the process more and causes you more issues. If you switch to a new lawyer they will tell you everything you need, however your Labour / Perm and I-140 if available along with your A# will be needed by the new lawyer, just have the lawyer or your company if they are the company lawyer get this information for you, if they do not give it in a timely manner your only option is to bring a law suit against them, they are right now killing your future because you are now further and further back in the queue and it is continually happening each day.
 
grncrdskr said:
I am in the process of applying for my I-485 in April/08 and my lawyer is telling me that she will be busy until the third week of April/08 and she could not promise me to submit my application before the end of Aprill/08 but she will try to this time. She have promised me submission dates in the past for I-485 and when the date gets nearer she keeps on delaying and moving the dates further down the calendar and I missed the I-485 submission on last year July/07. Moreover, she does not like me following up on my case. She gives me condescending, negative and rude remarks. There were many incidents that could have jeopardize my GC process. Currently, I am worried that the priority dates may change or retrogress in May and so I am thinking of changing the lawyer or submitting the I-485 application myself. My priority dates are current now.

My first question is how do I change my lawyer in a friendly and peaceful terms? My employer okéd my request to switch attorney. What are the important documents that I have to procure or get from my lawyer before I let her go? I do not want her to mess around with my case and documents in a vindictive way in the future. Can the lawyers do that? Is there any horror story due to changing the lawyers? What is a formal process to terminate the current lawyer from representing me?

My second question is it advisable and doable to submit my own I-485 application or recommended using an attorney. Could someone please share their good or bad experience submitting their own I-485? This will give me time to prepare the application thoroughly and check and recheck to make sure that all the required documents are submitted. This will give me a piece of mind in waiting days. Thank you in advance for all the responses.
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If a lawyer is too busy to handle your case, she/he is not your lawyer. Period. End of Story.

I don't know why you will keep using her in the first place... If she didn't expect you to delay or short on paying her, how come she can expect you to receive not 100% services from her?

I will suggest you to use Rajiv, the site sponsor as he maintain this great forum to the immigrations community.

Or I will recommend you Margaret Wong, my lawyer. She owns a big team and the response time is exceptional. Good services and will reply and taking actions within a day.
 
battelle said:
As my experience, Don't change lawyer.
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Well... don't change a lawyer if you changed to another A__HO_E one. Changed it if you get good recommendation and they will follow it up thru for you.

I fried my lawyer becaz she is not doing her job right and delay the response for a RFE for my I140 that eventually gets denied. Then I switched to the one today. Very good services and I shall start right up with her...
 
You should consider very carefully changing your lawyer. In theory, you should be entitled to all of your files so that you, or another lawyer, can continue your case. However, you run the risk of a "messy divorce" with your lawyer where she withholds your files or just delays giving them to you or your employer (depending on who hired her).

Although lawyers are ethically obligated to surrender clients' files promptly, there may be a delay even with a good and honest lawyer. This may cause delays and put your case in greater jeopardy. If you decide to fire her, you should have some comfort in being able to get the files you need from her.

As far as preparing your I-485, many people decide and successfully do so. There are lots of good sources of information, including this site and online community, so you will find plenty of information. However, if your case has any complexities, I'd suggest you get a competent immigration lawyer to help you with them.
 
Same as our Lawyer who waisted our opportunity

My Ist lawyer is the same as your lawyer. We're almost 95% paid to him because of the retrogession and yet we did not use him in filing our 485 because he said last July that he's processing accdg. to nationality and priority date where last July fiasco everyone is current. Always busy and in vacation even the staff (out of office reply). He screwed our papers and ending upto now waiting. Did not even anaylze our case before submission. Supposed to be EB2 since 2005(current) even we keep on insisting qualified for EB-2 and yet submitted EB-3(backlog). After 2 years backlog we went back to this S_U_ _D lawyer last year and just said to us "Oh you're really qualified for EB2 long time ago...let's submit a new one and pay me again for the LC for this amount only ok and we'll just request porting in 485 once 1-140 got approved. Now even the EB2 is backlog and the EB-3 is not current. Double pay....He earned...we loose. Today I submitted my W-2 and Audited FS to reply RFE for the EB-2 I-140 and the secretary said "Oh we can't submit it soon because he'll be on vacation from monday to April...blah blah and besides he's busy for this 2 days before going vacation, we'll just try. That the answer after paying them all the money.

So better make sure to get a good one...from what state are you? CA? Keep on reading articles about I-140 and I-485 submission requirement. Get a lawyer in same state where you are and you can meet personally every time you ask appt. not only when you're paying the balance. Be aware and full of knowledge with your case even you find a new lawyer...It's your life and not theirs...Goodluck and God bless!!
 
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Thank you very much for your prompt responses Bartman0018, laborvisalaw, belacut, battelle, belacut, and darren102. I send my lawyer an email telling her that i have to stop her service and cut her off. On the meantime, my lawyer called my employer and told my employer that the law firm will sue to recover the whole lawyer fees even though she did not provide me with the complete service as we agreed upon the contract. I agreed upon the contract that we are going to submit the payment as we progress in the case on each milestone achieved.

And now the lawyer is saying that my fees were highly discounted at the beginning and law office is going to increase my billing and charge me to the normal fees and take me to court. Now the lawyer wants to inflate the prices on the contract we signed on. Can you all see how vicious and angry my lawyer is approaching my case. A person who is supposedly to help me to walk through the process and represent my best interest. And finally in the phone the lawyer seems to say this to my employer too, the lawyer is willing move forward with my case provided I pay up and complete the process and the lawyer will do the submission for me. I don't trust my lawyer anymore and the lawyer does not represent my best interest at heart.

The lawyer seems to have this idea that she can get away with her doing by threat of law suit if I don't do as she wants me too. The lawyer have told me countless time on my face that they have spent countless time on my case and is unhappy with the mistake of discounting my lawyer fees at the beginning stage. The lawyer did not like me following my case all along with my emails and phone call. Ninety-five percent of the email follow up are done by the law clerk. I have to repeatedly sent email to the law office and the law clerk will pick and choose to respond to my case inquiry. The law clerk and lawyer even charge me for some of the email inquiries and I did pay for her time for email reply. These were not in the contract.

I am in the last process of submitting my I-485 and I have paid all my lawyer bills to the last milestone as I agreed upon the contract. I don't trust my lawyer anymore and I want to move on with the process. How do I deal with this angry, mean spirited and vicious lawyer? I am in Texas and is there any ombudsman office or better business bureau where I can fire my lawyer peacefully in a professional manner. Please help me. Thank you in advance for your time and reply.
 
Just make sure you have all the correspondences you have with this lawyer. All the charges he is giving you. Keep your contract and all papers. In the first place, your employer should be the one paying him but since this thing happened, I know your employer will not going to pay him and because you're at his mercy now especially if you want to have peace of mind while waiting for your GC. What I mean, still your employer should pay him and not you or it should course to your employer. After that, either you forget about her or file a complain with AILA.....but do first the most important thing....apply your GC...get your greencard thru other lawyer and this time be smart in talking to your lawyer. Tell the new lawyer what you're expecting to receive from his service once you hire them. If they can't then look for other referrals....This kind of lawyer should learn from the experience of one of the well-know lawyers whose going on jail next month to serve their sentence. The lawyers should be nice to client because they don't even know if one of this days one of their clients w/c might not be you will make an issue out of them to be investigated....it's like a karma!!!


I'm not a lawyer and this is just a personal opinion. Go and look for a professional lawyer who can help you achieve the american dream(?).
 
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