Everything You Need to Know about Writ of Mandamus (Part III)

Now You Are Ready to Roll

Confirmed that you are indeed a victim of governmental inefficiency and your patience have run out, you decide to fight. How? Chances are that you probably never file a lawsuit before. Naturally you will think about a lawyer. Here is today's shocking headline for you: "Lawyers Are Expensive." So you want to do it yourself (DIY). The good news for DIYers is that a WoM is probably even simpler than a divorce suit; and many compassionate people already posted their experiences online (assuming you still have internet connection after spending tens of thousands dollars on immigration).

DIY

Many immigrants successfully filed WoM by themselves and received favorable outcomes. A very helpful post on Immigration.com is probably the grandfather of online DIY resource. Kudos to Publicus!

An article about FBI Name Check on Wikipedia.com is also full of useful information.

The obvious advantage of DIY is the money-saving aspect. You pay $350 filing fee and that’s it. Of course, please feel free to do the calculation:

Additional cost = your hourly wages X the number of hours you spent on researching and preparing the lawsuit.

Lawyer

For outsiders, law practice is all about paperwork. Yes, there is indeed a lot of paperwork involved in WoM suit. After losing the immigration waiting game, you probably have little patience or confidence left to deal with all the WoM-associated paperwork and court procedurals. Here comes the immigration lawyer. And here comes the money talk.

Lawyer's fee dealing with WoM varies, as it does with other type of immigration issues. After shopping around, you can see price tags ranging from 2k to 5k, mostly around $3,000-3,500. The recent trend is that the law firm will file a class action suit on behalf of multiple immigrants. Theoretically, that could bring down the cost to certain extent; but practically, the cost reduction does not significantly reflect in the lawyer fees.

Please also keep in mind that although lawyers may handle the case for you, you will still spend significant amount of time to communicate, collect documents, and research for your case.

Aftermath

Like all the other types of lawsuit, WoM suits yield different results. Nobody has ever done an analysis on the proportion of favorable results. Anecdotally, favorable results seem to lead the way. Unlike many other types of lawsuit, the immigrants will not lose anything because of the unfavorable ruling except the fee associated with the suit. The real scary question is whether a "retaliation" move from the government is coming after the plaintiff in the future. The lawyers, especially reputable immigration lawyers, normally say "no" to this fear, for a good reason. Because no matter how hard we fight for our right, we still believe in this democratic system. That's the basis for us to fight. And so far, no confirmed report of such retaliation, not even a hint. One important fact that can assure the potential filers is that in order for USCIS to retaliate by rejecting your application, there has to be a strong reason for them to do so. Take Permanent Residency and Citizenship cases as example, if you don't have any "grey area" in your immigration history or any criminal background, there is no reason to be afraid. However, here comes the big "However". Anything can happen in this immigration depression era, right in front of your eyes.