Is Hiring an Immigration Lawyer better than Working on your own?

[SoonToBeMrsBayfield]

My fiancé and I are planning to get married next year. I am a Filipino citizen working in the US with an H1B visa. We were supposed to get an immigration lawyer in the Philippines to help us out in the spouse visa application. But since I will be in the states while we are processing the visa, we might just choose the Ottawa visa office as it would be nearer my current location. (Or do we have other options for this? Like apply in a visa office in the US?) He is from Alberta and I am currently based in California (if those infos help) Moving on, how much is the average cost of getting an immigration lawyer in to help us out with the processing? Shall we get one in Canada or in the US? Is it worth it?

All help will be very much appreciated. Thank you!

 

[canuck_in_uk]

My fiancé and I are planning to get married next year. I am a Filipino citizen working in the US with an H1B visa. We were supposed to get an immigration lawyer in the Philippines to help us out in the spouse visa application. But since I will be in the states while we are processing the visa, we might just choose the Ottawa visa office as it would be nearer my current location. (Or do we have other options for this? Like apply in a visa office in the US?) He is from Alberta and I am currently based in California (if those infos help) Moving on, how much is the average cost of getting an immigration lawyer in to help us out with the processing? Shall we get one in Canada or in the US? Is it worth it?

All help will be very much appreciated. Thank you!

You don't get to choose the VO. IRCC will decide whether to send the app to Ottawa or Manila.

The vast majority of people do the process without a lawyer.

 

[Cassiano]

My fiancé and I are planning to get married next year. I am a Filipino citizen working in the US with an H1B visa. We were supposed to get an immigration lawyer in the Philippines to help us out in the spouse visa application. But since I will be in the states while we are processing the visa, we might just choose the Ottawa visa office as it would be nearer my current location. (Or do we have other options for this? Like apply in a visa office in the US?) He is from Alberta and I am currently based in California (if those infos help) Moving on, how much is the average cost of getting an immigration lawyer in to help us out with the processing? Shall we get one in Canada or in the US? Is it worth it?

All help will be very much appreciated. Thank you!

A immigration lawyer/consultant is the best option to avoid any problem in the future
This blog give you general ideas but no solve any problem

 

[scylla]

My fiancé and I are planning to get married next year. I am a Filipino citizen working in the US with an H1B visa. We were supposed to get an immigration lawyer in the Philippines to help us out in the spouse visa application. But since I will be in the states while we are processing the visa, we might just choose the Ottawa visa office as it would be nearer my current location. (Or do we have other options for this? Like apply in a visa office in the US?) He is from Alberta and I am currently based in California (if those infos help) Moving on, how much is the average cost of getting an immigration lawyer in to help us out with the processing? Shall we get one in Canada or in the US? Is it worth it?

All help will be very much appreciated. Thank you!

You don't need a lawyer. It's very easy to apply on your own. If you do want to use a lawyer, expect to pay $3K to $5K for someone decent.

As explained above, you cannot chose your visa office. IRCC will chose the visa office for you.

 

[canuck_in_uk]

A immigration lawyer/consultant is the best option to avoid any problem in the future
This blog give you general ideas but no solve any problem

This forum is full of stories of lawyers that screwed up people's apps.

I also suggest you read through the thousands of threads where people had their problems solved....

 

[bellaluna]

My fiancé and I are planning to get married next year. I am a Filipino citizen working in the US with an H1B visa. We were supposed to get an immigration lawyer in the Philippines to help us out in the spouse visa application. But since I will be in the states while we are processing the visa, we might just choose the Ottawa visa office as it would be nearer my current location. (Or do we have other options for this? Like apply in a visa office in the US?) He is from Alberta and I am currently based in California (if those infos help) Moving on, how much is the average cost of getting an immigration lawyer in to help us out with the processing? Shall we get one in Canada or in the US? Is it worth it?

All help will be very much appreciated. Thank you!

As someone who previously used an immigration consultant that screwed up my case several times and only got PR when I DIYed...all they'll do is give you a checklist of documents, which can be easily found for free on the IRCC website and this forum. You will still do all the work anyway. It's also better to DIY because you can "adapt" your documents to your case to make it stronger, based on the cases of people on this forum. Consultants will only ask you to do it the one way they know how. It's also easier to keep track of application statuses these days because it's all online.

 

[kevon2310]

Each persons case is different. For my PR process I did it myself and it worked fine.When I needed to apply for a PRTD, I used a law firm in Canada while I was based in the US. It worked out just fine as well.