To Lawyer or not to Lawyer?
From the beginning we knew that we wanted to hire an immigration lawyer. We are both pretty busy people and the idea of a lawyer doing a lot of the leg work and making sure we weren't making mistakes was what swung it.
Yes, an immigration lawyer is expensive (they can cost anything from £3000 upwards), but for us it was worth every penny. Our lawyer explained every single step and guided us through each part of the process. We definitely got our money's worth.
That's not to say that you definitely need to hire a lawyer. The immigration process in itself is SO expensive. I'm pretty sure we could've completed the process on our own, but I think it would have been a lot more stressful and perhaps taken much longer.
We used Sterling Immigration who are a verified member of the ICCRIC (Immigration Consultants of Canada Regulatory Council). You can check here to ensure you are hiring a verified member of the council.
We first met our lawyer in July 2016 for a consultation. He was based in Birmingham and we could've had the consultation over the phone, but we decided we wanted to meet him in person. We sent him our CV's via email first of all and then took a list of questions along with us on the day. There was a charge for the consultation (around £100-150), but if you decided to hire him, the charge was waived.
After looking and our CV's and asking for other relevant information, our lawyer said we had a good chance of getting permanent residency. So we decided to go ahead and sign a retainer with our lawyer. Once this was complete and we paid the first fee (we paid half upfront and then the rest later down the line), he emailed us a detailed guide of the process. He asked us both to complete a questionnaire. This questionnaire was huge and required a lot of information and I'll do a separate post about this. One thing we learned during this process is that it's very good to be organised with all your paperwork, finances, work information etc. Otherwise it can be very time consuming (and stressful, as we found out!) finding all the information you need.
Yes, an immigration lawyer is expensive (they can cost anything from £3000 upwards), but for us it was worth every penny. Our lawyer explained every single step and guided us through each part of the process. We definitely got our money's worth.
That's not to say that you definitely need to hire a lawyer. The immigration process in itself is SO expensive. I'm pretty sure we could've completed the process on our own, but I think it would have been a lot more stressful and perhaps taken much longer.
We used Sterling Immigration who are a verified member of the ICCRIC (Immigration Consultants of Canada Regulatory Council). You can check here to ensure you are hiring a verified member of the council.
We first met our lawyer in July 2016 for a consultation. He was based in Birmingham and we could've had the consultation over the phone, but we decided we wanted to meet him in person. We sent him our CV's via email first of all and then took a list of questions along with us on the day. There was a charge for the consultation (around £100-150), but if you decided to hire him, the charge was waived.
After looking and our CV's and asking for other relevant information, our lawyer said we had a good chance of getting permanent residency. So we decided to go ahead and sign a retainer with our lawyer. Once this was complete and we paid the first fee (we paid half upfront and then the rest later down the line), he emailed us a detailed guide of the process. He asked us both to complete a questionnaire. This questionnaire was huge and required a lot of information and I'll do a separate post about this. One thing we learned during this process is that it's very good to be organised with all your paperwork, finances, work information etc. Otherwise it can be very time consuming (and stressful, as we found out!) finding all the information you need.
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