From Jennifer Leavitt-Wipf,
Your Guide to Immigration Issues.
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Furthermore, in Texas, Florida and California, attorneys are classified by their area of specialization. While legal professionals in other states specialize without the benefit of this system, this official specification provides yet another means for doing a background check on your immigration attorney if he or she is in one of these states. According to Shusterman, the certification requires a listing of courses taken by the attorney, the passing of an exam, and a collection of professional recommendations.

Siskind points out that many immigration attorneys further specialize in particular areas within immigration law. If you have an amnesty case, search for an immigration attorney that specializes in that. In this kind of very specific specialization, having several specialties is fine, but you don't want to have an immigration attorney represent you on a deportation case, for example, unless he or she has experience in that area. (So how does an attorney learn if they can never take a first case?" you ask? Well, they can work on a case with a senior attorney until they know the ropes well enough to work their own cases, but that shouldn't be your concern.)

In addition, it can be helpful to know that the immigration attorney in question has had extensive dealings with the USCIS, either as a previous employee or in other significant capacities.

Another good way to monitor an immigration attorney's professionalism is through reviewing the press they have received and taking note of how often those immigration attorneys are used as sources by major media, Siskind points out. Part of what information on the web has done, is to make both journalists and clients much more knowledgeable. A good immigration attorney should greet this pressure with relative ease and be able to rise to the occasion. "Interview your immigration attorney!" says Siskind. The Internet has made clients much more savvy and it's getting harder for lousy immigration attorneys to pull the wool over their eyes. If you are seeking an immigration attorney, you too should be one of those savvy interviewers.

Shusterman points out that being put on the spot for an immediate answer, i.e. by reporters on the phone, or in professional live chats, is definitely a good indicator of being on the ball. "Journalists don't keep calling you if you aren't providing legally accurate information," he points out. Look too at which publications are quoting the immigration attorney. How well known and prestigious are those publications? Do you trust them to identify top sources?

The Internet Changes Client/Immigration Attorney Dealings

The availability of information on the web will inevitably, to some extent, change the way things have been done. "You will start to see the unbundling of legal services," says Siskind, where clients fill out forms and the law firm checks them over, handles complications and oversees the case. This will enable those without financial means to reap the benefits of having an immigration attorney.

Another thing we will start to see more of is client-specific, password protected Web sites, says Siskind, who may implement this at some point. In other words, immigration attorneys will eventually set up pages where their clients can look at their own files right on line and perhaps view personal messages from their attorneys.

One firm, Frageman, already does this, says Shusterman. But it's a very large corporate firm that takes few if any individual cases and is not publicized for the general public. The firm is also responsible for some of the top immigration law books available to those practicing law.

These changes are a good indication of the trends toward a more client-friendly environment when it comes to immigration law. It used to be nearly impossible to find legal information unless you went to a law library, or subscribed to a prohibitively expensive online database for attorneys. Now, however, freedom of legal information on the Net means that you can be an educated consumer, and a cunning interviewer of your prospective immigration attorney. This may even be a pretty good situation for immigration attorneys, who, instead of spending time taking hundreds of phone calls about general laws or procedures, can spend most of their time learning about the ever-changing laws and procedures, and directly handling your case instead.