Do We Need A Lawyer for spousal sponsorship application ?

[unicornpants]

I concur with most folks on here. If you have a simple application, just do it yourself (but double and triple check you have everything!). If it could be more complex then either a lawyer or an immigration service business can certainly help. The cost will vary depending on what they'll need to do. We started our application without a lawyer but when they started asking for docs we couldn't provide we went to an immigration service. Cost less than $1500 and was well worth the money.

 

[Mightytonewheel]

if there's a lawyer, they receive all communication from cic first. they can sometimes be slow in forwarding that information on. if you don't have a lawyer, all communicaiton goes to the sponsor and applicant directly.

I don't think this is true. Just because you consult with a lawyer does not mean you're asking the lawyer to officially represent you to CIC. There's a very specific series of steps that applicants have to take to fully turn over their file to a representative. Simply hiring a lawyer does not make it so. Of course lawyers offer this service too, but many lawyers will give you advice or review documents without asking you to turn over complete representation to them.

 

[Mightytonewheel]

Lawyer can be useful if ur case is complicated or 2nd marriage.

You don't need to hire a lawyer simply because it's a second marriage. I am divorced and remarried. My new wife is the principal applicant. I simply supplied the marriage certificate and divorce certificate from my first marriage, and my ex-wife's contact information. That was it. It's very common, uncomplicated, and I certainly didn't need a lawyer for it.

 

[Mightytonewheel]

I don't think anyone can really say for sure whether a hiring a lawyer is better than not hiring a lawyer. A lot depends on the person and the situation. The application process is designed so that anyone can do it, but some people -- for instance, people with more money than time -- might prefer to use a lawyer. Or, people who aren't strong on details, documents, etc. A good lawyer can be a good resource in certain cases. I know a few people that used a lawyer, and got good results -- but they were the kind of people who preferred not to do that sort of thing by themselves.

In my case, I hired an immigration consultant. I completed the application myself but asked her to review it. She charged me $700 and, although she said my application was good, she gave me a list of pointers. Most importantly, she pointed out that we had completely forgotten to include one document -- an oversight that could have cost us several months of delays. She also gave a bunch of other suggestions and fixed a number of little errors.

I also believe there is such a thing as a bad application and a good application, and I suspect (although cannot prove) that good applications stand a better chance of speedy approval over good applications. I'm sure many applications are submitted with little mistakes, big mistakes, missing material, too much or too little relationship evidence, the wrong kind of relationship evidence, etc. etc. There are lots of people that can do good applications on their own, but also lots of people who will benefit from at least a cold-eyes review.

 

[tracy1296]

Hi, i am looking for an immigration consultant to review my application, can you let me know the person or address you went to. it would really help me. thank you

 

[uCHEMAMA]

Is hiring a lawyer beneficial in spousal sponsorship application ? or I can just do that myself and there ll be no affect on the processing time ? How many of the applicants hire a lawyer ?

Not at all. All the forms are pretty straight forward. Just make sure you fill out what they ask for and remember to date and sign everything. I did my husbands sponsorship myself - submitted in June 2016. Application forwarded to Ghana in August 2016 and received confirmation of Visa January 3rd 2017.

Meanwhile my friend used a lawyer and he made a mistake with the dates - failed to notice the date of marriage in Nigeria was before her divorce in Canada went through and she ended up having to wait for an additional 5 years because Immigration said her marriage was not valid! Do it yourself - it is easy

 

[jeff198901]

I am going to have a lawyer review my package before I complete it. Otherwise, I'm doing it alone with my soon to be wife.

 

[profiler]

I will sing with the choir...

We paid for consulting from a lawyer for 1hr prior to us doing paperwork. It gave us ideas how to resolve case-specific gotchas. After that, research + the awesome folks at canadavisa.com's forum was the rest. It actually is pretty easy, once you start to dig in. It will make sense, and 'experts' are a message away.

Keep in mind that, if a form is filled out wrong or missing 9/10 times they will request it again or you can upload the updated. Same with proofs, etc.