This retainer agreement will confirm the terms upon which you have retained our firm to represent you in connection with immigration and related matters. The services to be rendered will consist of securing the receipt by your fiance of a K1 visa to enter the United States. The specific services to be provided are as follows:
1. USCIS Petition Review
We will review your USCIS petition to check for potential issues that could cause problems during the Embassy interview
2. Re-Interview of Fiance
A member of our office (including overseas staff) will contact your fiance to re-interview her to (1) verify that all information in the USCIS petition is accurate and (2) obtain all biographical information required for the Embassy forms.
3. Supporting Document Advice
Our office will provide you and your fiance with all necessary advice regarding the collection of supporting documents for the Embassy interview.
4. Embassy Forms Preparation
We will fill out all Embassy forms for your fiance shortly after we obtain her biographical information and we will express mail the forms directly to your fiance's home address. We will also send your fiance's instructions prepared by our office, as well as all the Embassy instructions and other material contained in U.S. State Department Packet #3 (initial Embassy mailing to the fiance) and U.S. State Department Packet #4 (final Embassy mailing to the fiance).
5. Contact with U.S. Embassy
All required telephone, mail, and fax contact with the U.S. Embassy will be handled by our office. In extraordinary circumstances, we may ask you to voluntarily contact the Embassy to aid our office's efforts to expedite your case. Your voluntary agreement to undertake such contact will not be deemed as a failure by our firm to adhere to the terms of this agreement.
6. Contact with the Fiance
We will honor all reasonable client requests to contact your fiance by telephone to assist her/him in resolving problems or difficulties associated with the legal process as well as maintaining confidence and composure in the process.
7. Paralegal Assistance in Moscow, Kiev, Guangzhou, Manila and Warsaw
One of our assistants will meet your fiance prior to her Embassy interview to prepare her/him for the interview. In the event that our assistant becomes unavailable due to illness or some other exigency beyond the control of our office, a member of our U.S. office fluent in your fiance's foreign language will contact your fiance by telephone to conduct the Embassy interview preparation.
8. Embassy Interview Preparation for Other Cities
For fiances undertaking interviews in embassies other than those listed in the paragraph above, one of our attorneys will call your fiance and thoroughly prepare her/him for the interview through telephone consultation.
GENERAL SERVICES / PROVISIONS:
9. Client Updates
We will keep you closely advised of all significant developments in the progress of your case. We will initiate contact to advise you of the following events, among others: (a) Our successful contact with your fiance to obtain all necessary biographical information (b) Contact with the NVC as necessary to ensure your case's progress to the Embassy (c) Request by our office to Embassy for interview date for your fiance (d) Interview date for your fiance
10. Attorney Accessibility
You can expect to have access to an attorney during normal working hours, Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Eastern Time, excluding holidays. Should a specific attorney you desire to speak with be engaged at the time of your telephone call, you can expect a return telephone call within 24 hours (not including weekends and holidays), except in such cases where extraordinary circumstances beyond the control of the attorney make such a call impossible.
If a client engages in excessive, unwarranted telephone calling and/ or email contact that clearly constitutes an abuse of the fixed fee arrangement, and hinders our ability to provide quality legal service to our other clients, then we may ask such client to desist, and, failing that, may assert a right to bill the client for the unreasonable additional contact.
11. Expedited Case Processing
Every reasonable effort will be made to expedite your case promptly and efficiently. Please understand, however, that government bureaucracy errors or workload problems beyond our office's control can sometimes slow the processing of a case. We will, however, work proactively with the government agencies involved to minimize the impact on your case of any such government errors or delays.
12. Attorney/Client Ethics
We expect that all information given by you or your fiance to our firm, either orally or in writing, will be accurate to the best of your knowledge. If we discover that any information you supply us is willfully inaccurate or false, we will immediately withdraw from representing you as required by law.
13. Attorney Fee
You will be charged an initial retainer of $1500 for the K1 visa services described herein, plus $300 for each child invited as a K-2 beneficiary. We reserve the right to bill for complications that arise from mistakes that you made in preparing the USCIS petition. Any additional fees will be charged based on the prior agreement by the client. All fee agreements are based on the presumption that the facts are as you and your fiance have represented them and that no material facts have been withheld by you or your fiance.
14. Expenses
We will not bill you for our office expenses associated with processing your case (e.g. express mail charges, telephone charges, copying costs, et cetera). You will separately pay all required government fees and medical examination fees.
AGREED TO AND ACCEPTED BY:
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Client Name
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John F. Roth
