I will start with a short summary, if you want the absolute best legal support and guidance, Sound Immigration is it. End of story.
My wife and I had a civil marriage by a judge. Afterward, we had a friendly conversation with him, and he asked...
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I will start with a short summary, if you want the absolute best legal support and guidance, Sound Immigration is it. End of story.
My wife and I had a civil marriage by a judge. Afterward, we had a friendly conversation with him, and he asked what our plans were. We said we were strongly considering planting roots in the U.S., and he suggested a public service that connects regular citizens with legal assistance. I called the hotline and was scheduled for an interview with an immigration lawyer.
Our meeting did not go well. Being sometimes the naive person that I am, my thought was, "I am a U.S. Citizen, I have married the love of my life, this should be as simple as it gets." It turns out, it is not so simple. In fact, the first lawyer we had basically said it was a non-starter, since my wife came in on an ESTA, and that we would be unable to adjust status while remaining in the U.S. and should leave the country ASAP before her 90-day window expired.
I must have searched for hours over legal opinions, court cases, message posts, and lawyer blogs. That search led me to Greg McLawsen, who had written an article about a recent 9th district appeal over a case similar to our situation, which had ruled in fact that having an ESTA *is* a valid status, and one that could legally be adjusted from.
From our first meeting, there were four key considerations that made me choose to go with Sound Immigration:
1) Greg quite simply knew his craft, inside and out. I could tell he was one of the best, even if his modesty didn't allow him to say so.
2) He made it quite clear that he was the lawyer and advocate for *both* my wife and I. He made it clear that the documents I would be signing made me legally responsible to my wife, and if I neglected that responsibility, he would take me to court to enforce it on her behalf. That may have made some people wary, but as someone that loves my wife, it was exactly what I wanted to hear.
3) His hand-picked cadre of lawyers and staff were of the same caliber as he was, making us confident that our case would get the absolute greatest attention to every detail in a timely matter.
4) We shared a similar passion of travel, exploration, and in general compassion for people and experiencing the World. As someone that travels nearly constantly for work, and loves to travel and explore in general, it was great to know Greg was able to offer his same level of exceptional service no matter where I happened to be at any given time, and we were not tied to having to visit his office for any particular matter as our case made its way through the process.
My intuitive positive sense of Sound Immigration was only further cemented as we went through the process of adjusting my wife's status. They answered every single question we had, giving exact answers when possible, and explaining the nuance of certain answers that involved matters where there may be non-zero chances of certain events happening. DHS may be many things, but predictable is not always one of them: laws, precedence, and interpretations are always changing and tend to be transient.
I will end this by saving you a lot of time and money. I have done the due diligence, if you have legal immigration case that you want the best legal help on, Sound Immigration is your place. Even better, the cost of their services was modest when compared to the cost of relocating someone from another country, as well as when compared to the application costs alone for submitting and adjustment of status application. No matter what unique circumstances you may have, it is doubtful Sound Immigration has not had a case similar to it before. In the rare chance your case is really that unique, Greg and his colleagues will only work that much harder, as they find pride in wading through the legal nuance and helping rightful citizens be with their family.
It was an honor to be their client, and I would recommend them to anyone.