Step One - Hiring a Lawyer

Hello everyone,

After several weeks of waiting to hear from the lawyer at Masliah and Soloway, we finally had our consultation last night!

As you may recall, their company was the ones who helped set up the DOMA Project, which was designed by the firm's lawyers to challenge DOMA.

After DOMA was overturned, they began offering initial consultations for free.

We applied for this, but only last night did we finally get ours.

Anyway, we spent an hour or so talking via Skype to Lavi Soloway, having a detailed discussion about what happened next, what we should do and the immigration process.

Overall it was very useful. He was able to clarify for us a few questions we had, and we have decided to go ahead and hire them as our representatives through this process.

Their fees seem quite reasonable, and are a flat fee rather than ongoing costs that they bill us for. It allows you to know exactly where you stand.

Lavi informed us that they are very flexible with payments, and will always try to figure out what is best for the clients.

So, to begin with the fee for the filing of the first round of paperwork will cost $1500, which we are paying as three $500 instalments.

For this fee, they sent us a list of everything we need to gather.

We send it all to them, and then they will file the forms on our behalf.

We also have to pay them the fees as required for the I-130 petition. These are currently set at $420.

This is the list and instructions sent to us:

For the U.S. Citizen Spouse - Petitioner:

*Marriage Certificate
*Birth Certificate
*Biographical Page of U.S. Passport

*U.S. Naturalization Certificate (if applicable)

*Document Evidencing Termination of Prior Marriage (if applicable)

*One Passport-style Photograph (requirements: <http://www.travel.state.gov/visa/visaphotoreq/visaphotoreq_5334.html> )

For the Foreign National Spouse - Beneficiary:

*Birth Certificate (with certified translation if document is not in English)
*Passport(s) (a copy of each page of each passport, including cover)

*Document Evidencing Termination of Prior Marriage (if applicable)
One Passport-style Photograph (requirements for this linked above)

All documents not in English must be accompanied by certified translations. Upon request, we can have any documents translated on your behalf for a small fee. Each translation must include a statement signed by the translator that states that the:

*Translation is accurate, and,
*Translator is competent to translate from that language into English.

Of course, only a select few things on that list apply to us, but it is worth noting here for people reading this that it does affect.

So, when I am with Jon this week, we will fill out the forms that were attached to the email, get our photos taken, and send both with the fees and copies of our birth certificates to them.

Once we are married we will forward them our marriage certificate.

The lawyers will then send everything needed to the USCIS, and step one will be completed!

Once we have the forms in hand, and we are filling them out, I will document more accurately what you have to do exactly, as so that others can benefit from our experience.

I had mentioned that there was a second fee for the lawyers.

This is the only only other fee we pay them, besides and US government fees which they pay on our behalf when we send them the money.

It just takes away the stress of us doing it, and potentially getting it wrong. They ask, we provide, and we know it'll get done properly!

Anyway, the second fee I believe was $2500.

This will be for all assistance and forms etc after the I-130 has been sent, basically until the end of the process.

So, to recap, here's what we've had to do so far/about to do if not already:

*Hire a good immigration lawyer (Masliah and Soloway are immigration experts, and founders of the DOMA Project).

*Order any copies of birth certificates we don't hold.

*Send copies of these, plus passport photos, all our passport information, and travel information about my visits to the US.

*Provide personal biographical information to the lawyer, such as home addresses, work, Jon's income etc.

*File the lawyer fee and USCIS fee with the lawyers.

*Get married so that the lawyers can file the I-130 petition with the USCIS.

You may have noticed that "get married" was on the list. You may also recall that we haven't done this yet, as I was looking into venues etc.

Well, I am going to update about that probably tomorrow, so stay tuned!

Overall so far hasn't been too painful. Just a lot of waiting. And there'll be a lot more of that over the next year!

I'm actually typing this on my iPhone right now, but when I'm back at my desk I am going to make another update about getting married, what we have done to get that started, and I also will attach the forms we have had to fill out so far, so that you can all see the process exactly as it is (blank copies of course, which then you can print and use as a practice model if you want).

Dan.