Put together after comparing quotes from two law firms, a solo practitioner and a nonprofit legal clinic on the same family petition. Includes the fee schedules, the retainer language and the public records that explain the gaps between them.
A deposit on an immigration case is usually the least reversible thing a person does that week. The money moves, the file opens, and the leverage shifts to the other side of the desk. Almost everything worth knowing about the person taking that money is public, free, and reachable from a phone in the parking lot outside the office. The checks below take under an hour in total, and they are ordered so the cheapest and fastest ones come first, because most problems surface there.
1. The state bar licence, looked up by name, not by logo
Every state bar publishes a searchable member directory, and it will tell you whether a licence is active, when it was admitted, and whether there is any public discipline attached. Search the individual attorney, not the firm, because a firm name on a website says nothing about who holds the licence. If the person you sat with is not the person listed, ask directly who signs the filings. Note the admission year as well. A 2019 admission is not a defect, but it should match whatever the consultation implied about decades of experience.
2. The EOIR list of disciplined practitioners
The Executive Office for Immigration Review maintains a published list of practitioners who have been suspended or expelled from practice before the immigration courts, the Board of Immigration Appeals, and the Department of Homeland Security. This is a separate system from state bar discipline, and the two do not always overlap. Someone can hold an unblemished state licence and still be barred from appearing before an immigration judge. Search the list by surname, check the effective dates, and read the accompanying orders where they are linked. It takes about five minutes.
3. Court dockets, which show the work rather than the pitch
Federal court records through PACER, and many state court portals, are searchable by attorney name. What you are looking for is texture: has this person filed mandamus actions, appeals, or petitions for review, or does the name appear mainly as a defendant in fee disputes and collections cases? Both patterns are informative. A lawyer suing the government to move a stalled application is doing something a volume shop rarely does. A lawyer repeatedly sued by former clients over fees has told you how the retainer tends to end.
4. Reviews, read for the specific and against the pattern
Discard the five-star reviews that praise kindness and the one-star reviews written the day a case was denied, because neither tells you about the work. Read the middle. Useful reviews name a form number, describe a timeline, or explain who actually answered the phone over eighteen months. Look for the same complaint repeating across years, particularly about unreturned calls, files handled by unnamed staff, or fees quoted at intake that grew later. The Federal Trade Commission oversees deceptive advertising practices generally, and reviews that read as scripted often are.
5. The consultation, and the questions that produce a real answer
Ask who prepares the petition, who reviews it, and who appears if there is an interview or a hearing. Ask what happens if a request for evidence arrives, and whether responding to it is inside the fee or billed separately. Ask what would make this case difficult, because a lawyer who says nothing is difficult has either not read the facts or is not telling you. Then ask how many cases like yours the office filed last year. Vague answers to volume questions usually mean the number is large.
6. A written scope you can hold someone to
The engagement letter should name the specific forms and the specific beneficiaries, state the flat fee or the hourly rate with an estimate, and list what is excluded: government filing fees, translations, medical exams, appeals, consular processing, refiling after a denial. It should say how funds are held, when they are earned, and what happens to the balance if you terminate. It should name a responsible attorney. A scope written this way is the clearest sign that the office expects to be judged on the file, not on the intake.
Run the licence lookup and the EOIR search before the second meeting, not after. Bring the printed engagement letter home and read it somewhere quiet, without the person who wrote it sitting across from you. The offices that welcome that pause are, reliably, the ones worth the deposit.