Immigration software news and updates.

There are a vast number of tech tools designed to help you optimize your life and make the most of your time. We sat down with immigration tech guru Jared Jaskot to help us make sense of many of the tools available to immigration lawyers and how to decide what tech is best for your immigration law firm.

This article is not so much about the tech behind these tools itself, but more about how to choose wisely. Our goal today is to help you raise your tech IQ and choose tools that really fit your immigration law firm’s needs with confidence.

Basic questions to ask yourself when choosing tools and tech for your immigration law firm

Time is perhaps our most precious commodity. However, there are only 24 hours in a day, so saving time should be at the forefront of your mind when you’re choosing tech tools for your immigration law firm.

Here are some helpful questions you should consider when you’re choosing technology for your immigration law firm:

• Does the tech alleviate a pain point? Don’t go after every shiny new thing.  Ask yourself: does the tech solve a problem you have? For example, if you’re spending a lot of time sending client contracts back and forth for signature, an e-signature platform would solve that pain point and save you time. Or if you’re constantly frustrated with collecting client payments, consider an invoicing solution.
• How user friendly is the tech? If a tool is really complicated and requires a lot of training just to get started, you may end up losing more time learning the tool than you get back using it. Plus, think about user friendliness in relation to your staff and clients, too. Just because you can use a tool and understand it doesn't mean the rest of your staff will, and perhaps more importantly your clients.
• Is the company that makes the product open to customer feedback and improvement? Bugs and other tech issues occasionally come up, and knowing that the company is open and responsive to your feedback, which could potentially make the tech even better, is important. Otherwise you might be stuck on the phone with tech support for longer than you’d like and grow frustrated when issues aren’t resolved in a timely fashion.
• Does the tool support APIs? In simple terms, an API, otherwise known as an application programming interface, is the ability for two pieces of software to talk to each other. Think of it as a tunnel in cyberspace linking two endpoints. A good example of this is syncing your case management platform with your calendar to allow you to create a calendar event right from your case management dashboard - you’re interacting with the case management tool, but the invite is showing up on your calendar app. One of the major reasons APIs are so important is the ability for an update in one tool to carry over to another in order to save time and avoid the need for double data entry and the potential for errors, etc.

Choosing a tech tool can be overwhelming, and thinking through these questions, and in some cases asking the company, can help you feel more confident and comfortable saying yes to new software.

Choosing tech tools for different aspects of your immigration law firm

We’ve gone through some universal principles and questions to hopefully help you decide on the tech you need. So let’s dive into a few specific aspects of running an immigration practice to think about how tech can make each of them potentially easier.

Billing, accounting, and payment systems

Accurate and timely billing and clean accounting is key to running a healthy immigration law practice. Most billing software solutions these days are good - they allow you to create electronic invoices, track whether an invoice has been paid or is overdue, and more. If you’re currently billing manually, creating invoices manually and tracking payments in a spreadsheet or checkbook, almost any tool will be a step up.

That said, when deciding what billing system to use, here are a few other things to consider.

One is the type of client you have and how they will be able to pay. For example, relatively sophisticated clients, whether individual or corporate, will be able to pay you by credit card through an electronic invoice. Other clients, such as recent immigrants without many resources or who have not been able to open a bank account, may be unable to do so and will need to bring cash or a money order to your office to pay. Meet your clients where they are and make sure that the software you choose can accommodate accepting payments in whatever form your clients are able to pay.

Additionally, consider allowing payment plans too. It’s not uncommon for immigration clients to request payment plans, especially for high fees. If you’re dealing with a clientele which requests such arrangements, make sure your tool has the ability to split an invoice into parts or create an actual payment plan.

Templates to automate repetitive tasks

At their core, templates can help you automate your commonly filed paperwork. In immigration law, many firms specialize in specific types of cases, so a good portion of those cases will likely have at least some level of standardization.

Here are some of the tasks you can consider creating templates for, and thus consider when exploring what tech to adopt at your firm:

• Cover letters that might accompany various government filings.
• Routine government or client correspondence, such as email templates to clients with case status updates.
• Attorney-client agreements to use at the outset of a client engagement. We discussed the importance of clear agreements in our previous post about ethics for immigration lawyers. Most of the language in service agreements is standardized and does not have to be written from scratch every single time, so templates are helpful here.
• Motions, pleadings and petitions for review, especially if your immigration practice requires you to go to court.

Of course there can be any other number of tasks that you firm handles that might be ripe for automation, so don't take this list as exhaustive and be sure to audit your firm's processes and see what else you can create templates around or otherwise automate.

Telephone systems

While some law firms still have landlines, or perhaps even give out their cellphone numbers, we recommend voice over internet protocol systems (VoIP) to set up your phone line. What is VoIP? According to the FCC, VoIP is “a technology that allows you to make voice calls using a broadband Internet connection instead of a regular (or analog) phone line.” In other words, if you have an internet connection, you have a phone. No traditional landline is needed.

Vonage and RingCentral are some of the better known VoIP services, though there are a number of competitors out there worth looking at. If you’re going to deploy your staff remotely as many firms have had to do during the COVID-19 pandemic, a VoIP service allows you to set everyone up with their own line, hire people in other geographical locations , and set up your office anywhere you want or need.

Email systems: Not all are created equal

We’ve spent some time speaking about email and its importance in our article about how to get your immigration law firm started. Here, let’s focus more on how to know if an email system is any good.

Some of the basics you want to see your email system  include are:

• Read receipts - you want to be able to see if your email was read or seen.
• Calling back sent emails - in case you mistakenly sent incorrect information or forgot something, having the ability to “unsend” an email before the recipient opens it can save headache and back-and-forth.
• Bounce back for undeliverable emails - if you have a faulty email address or typed the wrong address, you want to be able to know that your email didn’t go through.

While there are many email services, Google Workspace, which includes email, video calling, phone and more is easy to use, provides multiple email accounts with your domain name, and helps you integrate other tools like Google Docs for team collaboration.

Office equipment such as scanners: what really matters

Yes it’s 2021, but immigration law still relies heavily on paper. That means scanners are still important. That said, instead of recommending a specific machine, let’s go over two important factors that may influence your decision.

First, and this might sound controversial, price should not be one of them. Don’t waste time trying to figure out how to save a few dollars; instead, make sure you choose a piece of equipment that is reliable and that you can get serviced easily if something goes wrong. You don’t want to be the lawyer that was late responding to a Request for Evidence (RFE) because their scanner broke down at the last minute.

Second, see if you can lease the machine instead of buying it. With such a large piece of equipment, leasing instead of buying gives you the option to upgrade as needed.  Because the company still owns it, they may make it easier to maintain it and upgrade as needed.

A few other tech tools immigration lawyers love:

Calendly: Calendly is one of the most popular appointment scheduling tools because they make scheduling, rescheduling, and canceling incredibly easy. It’s important to have a scheduling system that’s easy for your clients to use in case they have to reschedule or cancel a meeting or appointment with you. This helps reduce no-shows, manages expectations, and helps you keep track of your appointments.

Quickbooks and LawPay: These two systems work hand-in-hand to help you keep track of your firm’s billing and finances. And if you’re a Docketwise user, both Quickbooks and LawPay integrate seamlessly - when you generate an invoice through Docketwise, your client will get an option to pay using LawPay, and once this is done, everything will be recorded in your Quickbooks account for easy bookkeeping.

Docketwise provides immigration law forms automation and case management and connects with other tech tools too!

As you continue to introduce new technology into your law firm, Docketwise is working to build a one-stop solution for immigration law firms across the country. With Docketwise, you can streamline and automate the administrative parts of your work - from client intake to invoicing to form filling - and focus on what’s most important: supporting your clients.

From a full library of immigration forms to client questionnaires in multiple languages to an industry-leading set of API integrations, we help you stay up to date on all your cases, communicate easily with your clients, and otherwise build and manage your firm.

If you want to learn more about Docketwise, schedule a demo at the link below, or sign up for our Immigration Briefings newsletter for daily and weekly immigration updates!

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Legal ethics is a central topic to the practice of immigration law, but unless you’re an expert on the topic, it can be hard to keep track of all the ways you can run afoul of ethics obligations. Our recent articles on building a successful family-based immigration law firm as well as digital marketing and social media have highlighted ways to grow an immigration practice, both for new attorneys just getting started with their own firms or experienced attorneys looking to expand further. Still, the one constant underlying every immigration law firm is the need to abide by ethics rules.

We recently recorded a webinar about ethics for immigration lawyers with two experienced immigration attorneys: David Cox and Eric Singer, and we wanted to dive into some of the topics covered on that webinar here to help demystify some important ethic rules.

Let’s dive in.

Where do ethics rules for immigration lawyers come from?

Before getting into the meat and potatoes of ethics, let’s first explore where ethics rules come from. Generally, as an attorney, you’re subject to the ethics rules of your state. But these rules are also modeled after recommended rules created by the American Bar Association. Let’s look briefly at both.

• Your state bar: Each state has its own rules of professional conduct. Failure to abide by these rules could have serious consequences for your ability to practice law, so study them carefully. The American Immigration Lawyers Association has a great resource with every set of ethics rules by state in one place.
• The American Bar Association: The ABA Model Rules are suggestions to the states, so their rules aren’t binding. Often, they vary slightly from the actual state ethics rules that are based on them, but it’s a good idea to get to know these rules because of the connection to the rules of your state.

We’ll go over  six ABA Model rules (we recommend you get to know all of them) and some specific features within Docketwise that can save you time and create safeguards in relation to these rules. Let’s start with competence.

Competence within immigration law - having one or two experienced mentors is key.

It is essential to be well versed in immigration law if you’re going to practice it. Immigration law has its own set of statutes, court systems and opinions, and regulatory bodies, and regardless of your level of confidence with immigration law, especially in the beginning of your tenure as an attorney, it’s always advised to run your analysis and case preparation by one or two other experienced lawyers to check your understanding. This will help you ensure that you’re considering every possible solution and avoiding any errors, especially with more complex cases like asylum or deportation defense.

Competence also means knowing what you’re getting yourself into. A case that looks straightforward at the beginning may end up being more complicated than it seems. It’s also possible that a case that starts as one thing evolves into something else. For example a green card application for a family member can easily turn into an asylum case, so it’s important to know what to look out for.

In any case, you need to exercise caution and be confident with every step you take. Because pleading ignorance isn’t going to fly with your state bar, and errors can turn into ethical complaints or violations.

Scope of Representation within immigration law - clarify what you will and won’t be doing.

Establishing scope of your representation means clearly defining to your clients what services you will be providing. This is important because expectations are important, and you and your clients need to be on the same page. If your client thinks that you should be doing something that you don’t think you should be doing, that misalignment of expectations and service delivery can result in an ethical complaint.

Thus, it’s important to clearly spell out exactly what you will, and will not, be doing. Describing in detail what your representation involves is especially important if the case in question has a path to removal proceedings - let your client know whether you will be representing them if that happens. Representing your client for some things and not others is allowed under the model rules; however, the important thing to remember is that whatever you decide in terms of representing your client should be in writing.

Acting with diligence within immigration law - keep track of client deadlines

Following deadlines closely is very important in immigration law practice, and missing them can have consequences that range from minor to fatal. Being diligent and timely is relatively self-explanatory, but it’s worth mentioning two specific deadlines to be aware of.

Responses to agency requests, such as Requests for Evidence, as well as other applications such as BIA appeal submissions, have deadlines that are based on receipt of your package or application, not the postmark date when you sent it. For these types of matters, be sure to use a mailing service that can provide you with a tracking number so that you can monitor your package. It’s also important to note that USCIS has, throughout the COVID pandemic, allowed for some flexibility on deadlines, giving immigration attorneys and their clients more flexibility.

Another important “deadline” to be well aware of is when your client’s immigration status expires, or when they become eligible to file for a different status. Tracking these dates is important, and as an immigration lawyer, you should make sure that you have a system in place to deal with effectively tracking these deadlines and acting on them.

Client communication within immigration law - more is better.

Failure to communicate with clients is one of the most common ethical complaints against lawyers, so make sure you avoid misunderstandings by setting ground rules on how often you will communicate from the start of the case. Consider whether each client understands the actual steps of their immigration case and what they can potentially expect in order to avoid disappointments that may lead to a complaint.  

Always make sure to promptly notify clients of developments in their case, especially if you receive something that requires them to act such as a request for evidence. And in general, try to return client calls personally and as soon as possible, and if you won’t be able to call your client back in a reasonable timeframe, delegate this task to a staff member. That being said, it’s also important to establish boundaries with your clients as far as call-back expectations so that you have some space and don’t get overwhelmed.

One of the tricky aspects of immigration law is that processing times can be lengthy and cases may go through extended periods where it may seem like there are no signs of progress. It’s a good idea to explain to your clients that, depending on the specifics of their case, they may not hear from you for a while because nothing is happening, and that that’s normal. Reassure your clients that agency personnel are working on their case behind the scenes and will notify the attorney and client when an action has been taken.  Of course if a case does go beyond the typical processing time with no further action taken, then it’s time for you to start making case status inquiries with the agency.

This is also where it helps for your law firm to have a case management platform to help you monitor and take action on cases that are delayed. Docketwise, for example, allows users to set up workflows that break cases down into stages and let users know, by running a report, when certain stages are outside their normal processing times. Cases taking longer than estimated can be marked as “late,” and you can send a message to any clients with delayed cases. Depending on the version of Docketwise you have, it could be an email or text message.

Confidentiality within immigration law - take care of sensitive client information

As part of practicing immigration law, you’re naturally collecting a lot of personal, sensitive information about your clients and their families or companies. That includes information often used as identifiers, such as maiden names, dates of birth, and Social Security numbers. You have a duty to keep this information about your clients confidential. This is, of course, standard across all areas of law.

Diving a bit deeper into confidentiality, here are two nuanced tips to keep in mind that aren’t often talked about. First, be mindful of referrals. Specifically, when prospective clients come to your practice through a referral from someone they know, they may want confirmation that you did actually represent that person. Remember that representing someone in a legal matter, including an immigration matter, is considered a confidence in itself, so you’re ethically obligated to keep that information confidential unless your client has consented otherwise.

Email, text, chat conversations, and other forms of electronic client communications fall under the standard rules of confidentiality. So make sure that you keep all client interaction safe and secure. Remember that while email is a common form of communication, it’s actually not very safe, especially when sending sensitive information or documentation. The safest way to collect sensitive information or documentation is through a secure online portal, most often a case management system, that allows your clients direct access.

Conflicts of Interest within immigration law

This one is fairly simple, but it’s important to remember that you cannot represent someone whose interests are averse to the interests of your existing clients, past or present. Conflicts of interest can happen in family-based or employment-based immigration cases.

For example, if you also practice family law, you cannot represent one of the parties in a divorce if you previously represented them jointly in an imimgration matter.

As another example, in employment-based immigration, there could be a conflict of interest if you represent an employer and an applicant in an employment visa case, and the employee seeks your advice about their immigration options if they were to leave their current employment.  If representing someone may have an adverse effect on an existing or past client, you need to refer the case to another lawyer.

Docketwise can help you manage your immigration law cases and avoid ethics violations.

The more effective you are at staying on top of your cases, communicating properly and securely with clients, keeping their information and data safe, and avoiding conflicts of interest, the more likely you are to avoid ethics violations, especially if you’re just starting out.

With Docketwise, you can take advantage of our streamlined client communication, secure data storage, best-in-class  questionnaires and secure client portal for safe document uploading, case tracking capabilities, and more.

If you want to learn more about Docketwise, schedule a demo to talk to one of our team members, or sign up for our Immigration Briefings newsletter for daily and weekly immigration updates!

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Immigration law can sometimes seem like a completely administrative  field of practice, full of federal forms and visa applications. But the reality is that there is a great need for immigration lawyers who are willing to fight for their clients in immigration court as well.

Still, for immigration attorneys just getting started, or those interested in expanding to removal defense or other in-court representation, this may seem intimidating. It’s one thing to work out of your office and have someone double or triple check your work before sending it out to USCIS. It’s another thing to be in front of a live judge, opposing counsel (which is a lawyer for the Dept. of Homeland Security) and your client, have to publicly present your client’s case, and think quickly on your feet.

Plus, the consequences of being unsuccessful in this arena can be grave for the client. Deportation from the US, loss of the livelihood the client has built and potential separation from family members are all potential consequences of losing a removal case.

Well, we’ve got you covered. The Hon. Charles Honeyman (retired), a former immigration judge who now serves as of counsel to a private immigration law firm, presented a webinar titled “Reflections of the State of the Immigration Court and the BIA,” where he shared his story of the decades he spent presiding over cases at the EOIR Immigration Courts in New York City and Philadelphia, how politicization of the court in recent years has affected the administration of justice and why he believes the immigration courts should be reconstituted as Article 1 courts.

This article dives into some of what Judge Honeyman had to say and builds on top of it to help you feel more equipped stepping into the courtroom. So, let’s look at the nuts and bolts of the immigration court system, some issues you can expect, and some ways you can prepare as you take your immigration law practice to the next level.

The nuts and bolts of the US immigration court system

There are 520 immigration judges in the United States sitting in dozens of courts around the country, who are appointed for life. Reuters reports that two-thirds of the sitting immigration judges were appointed during the Trump administration, meaning that there are a lot of fresh judges on the bench.

In terms of hiring, the final say on who becomes an immigration judge falls under the authority of the Attorney General. Immigration judges make decisions on whether someone is found to have broken the country’s immigration laws and should be removed from the United States. Their decisions are appealable to the Board of Immigration Appeals (see below), and in some cases, to the federal appellate courts.

The immigration courts fall under the Department of Justice, specifically within an agency called the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR).

Within EOIR, the immigration court system breaks down further:

• Office of the Chief Immigration Judge (OCIJ) is the first level of judicial scrutiny within the immigration system. Immigration judges “are responsible for conducting formal proceedings and act independently in their decision-making capacity. Their decisions are administratively final unless appealed or certified to the Board.”
• Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) hears “appeals from certain decisions rendered by Immigration Judges and by immigration officials of DHS in a wide variety of proceedings involving the United States and either an alien, a citizen, or a business firm.” Importantly, BIA decisions are binding on all DHS officials and immigration judges unless “modified or overruled by the Attorney General or a federal court.”
• Office of the Chief Administrative Hearing Officer (OCAHO) is a separate division that “is responsible for the general supervision and management of the administrative law judges who preside at” some immigration hearings related to unlawful hiring or employment practices, immigration document-related fraud, and unfair hiring practices.

For a long time, each of these branches of the EOIR had separate policies and, because of the complexity and layers of the immigration court system, it wasn’t easy to navigate. But in early 2021 that changed.

The Department of Justice actually released a policy manual in January 2021 representing the “first comprehensive review… in a single resource, and includes the Immigration Court and Board of Immigration Appeals Practice Manuals, the Office of the Chief Administrative Hearing Officer Practice Manual, and all current agency policy memoranda.”

Still, despite the progress within EOIR, it’s important to remember that immigration is a political topic and immigration judges are sometimes vulnerable to political pressure from within and without the agency, sudden policy changes, and more. So let’s now take a look at some potential issues you should keep in mind when navigating the immigration court system.

Issues and trends to prepare for when dealing with US immigration court

Immigration courts, for reasons ranging from a massive backlog of cases to continued politicization, have also become a source of frustration for some attorneys, particularly less-experienced attorneys, who might not know what to expect.

So here are some things to look out for and tips to keep in mind:

• You may go to federal court more often than you think. During the Trump administration, more cases went to federal circuit court than before. What that means for you as a lawyer is that, to the best of your ability, you should anticipate and prepare for each case as if an eventual appeal to federal court might be necessary. Familiarize yourself with circuit court decisions pertaining to the legal issues in your case. If your client is charged as being removable because of a criminal conviction, be sure you understand how the federal circuit in which the immigration court is located interprets the immigration consequences of that particular crime.  
• Get familiar with the judges assigned to your cases and their proclivities to make sure that you comply with any particular requirements of the judge and to get an idea of how they may rule. This is where having a network of colleagues can be helpful; since immigration judges have a fair bit of discretion on how to interpret the law, and a prior decision by another judge may not have much of an impact on your case, it helps to hear from others that have had the same judge. Statistics on the percentage of grants vs. denials for some types of cases where the exercise of judicial discretion is decisive vary greatly among the immigration courts.
• Put all arguments on the record, even those beyond the IJ jurisdiction. If your case goes to federal court, this makes more arguments available on the record for future judges to analyze. Be sure to mention any procedural and other issues, such as an unsatisfactory interpreter, so these can be raised on appeal.
• Cases run significantly slower than in the federal and state courts of general jurisdiction, so stay on top of documents, dates and deadlines. There are a lot of factors that can slow a case down, including changes in the applicant’s status, motions for continuance, a criminal charge levied in the meantime, or clients changing lawyers. Go into each case thinking about the long run - you may not get a decision for more than a year, or in some cases multiple years, which makes having a streamlined case management system in place incredibly important to keep track of everything.
• Don’t take disagreements with opposing counsel personally. Believe it or not, government attorneys may not be happy about the positions they have to take in court. It can depend on the priorities of the current administration, job pressures felt by DHS trial attorneys, what the Attorney General is focused on at that time, or sometimes even the general political atmosphere. Treat your opposing counsel with professional courtesy at all times. They’re just doing their jobs, they’re not your enemy, and they might even want to find ways to work with you and help your client get the best possible result. Having said that, be sure to zealously advocate for your client by raising all justified objections.
• You may not hear about case changes until the last minute. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it wasn’t uncommon to find out about important court-related information last-minute and sometimes via unofficial channels. For example, many people found out about the courts closing through social media, rather than through any formal communication. Keep in mind that you could potentially have due process challenges in such a case, e.g. if a continuance is denied due to a last minute notice. This is especially important if you are working with vulnerable clients that may have limited access to email, or even physical mail, non-English speakers, or detained clients.

This list isn’t something you’ll read in most places, but it’s crucial to set expectations and prepare you for the realities of working in immigration court. It’s important to keep in mind the realities of practice just as much as the legalities of it.

So now that you know a bit about the immigration court system and some challenges and considerations to keep in mind, what can you do to best prepare to expand your practice or dive into representing clients in immigration court?

3 helpful tips you can follow as an immigration lawyer representing clients in immigration court

Whether you’re just thinking about adding immigration court representation to your practice or you’re already experienced and reading this article for advice, here are some universal pieces of advice you can heed to help you stay at the top of your practice.

• Attach yourself to a group or organization of immigration attorneys. Whether you decide to join a professional organization like the American Immigration Lawyers Association or the immigration section of the Federal Bar Association, or a more informal Facebook group like Nerdy Immigration Lawyers, these groups are extremely valuable resources. From official publications and conferences to candid, open-ended conversations, you can learn a lot from existing content.  If there are local organizations, or Facebook Groups, for example, that address the specific work you’re doing, join them too. Not only does it provide access to professional development, but it will help you find other lawyers with whom to share your experiences and insights.
• Connect and support other immigration lawyers on social media. This might seem silly, but especially in the work-from-home age of COVID-19, professional relationships are built online now more than ever. There are immigration lawyers across all social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and even TikTok, and you can build real relationships by engaging with their content and eventually reaching out and connecting. In addition to the broader industry knowledge you can gain from groups and organizations, building this personal support system can help you create a sense of community, easily get advice on a case, or find your future co-counsel, partner or employer.
• Finally, make sure you’re taking care of yourself. Practicing removal defense or otherwise representing immigrants in court can be emotionally taxing - clients may have to relive traumatic experiences, court dates may be rescheduled, and rulings may be unpredictable. In other words, the pressure is often on. Indeed, it was widely reported that during the Trump administration, burnout amongst immigration lawyers was incredibly high. Yes, this is very important, life-changing work, but it shouldn’t come at the expense of your own well-being. Remember that you have to take care of yourself before you take care of others, so if you need to take an extra day off, go on a short vacation, treat yourself to something small, like a nice lunch, meditate, or something else, do it and don’t think twice. Your clients, and your own well-being, will thank you for it.

Let Docketwise handle your immigration forms and case management while you get started in immigration court

Your court date can be rescheduled with no prior notice. Your BIA appeal can be pending for months on end. Your client’s situation might change proceedings are pending and you need to do unexpected additional work to prepare their case. With Docketwise, you can streamline and automate the administrative parts of your immigration casework so you can focus on what’s most important: supporting your clients.

From a full library of immigration forms to client questionnaires in multiple languages to an industry-leading set of API integrations, we help you stay up to date on all your cases, communicate easily with your clients, and otherwise build and manage your firm.

If you want to learn more about Docketwise, schedule a demo at the link below, or sign up for our Immigration Briefings newsletter for daily and weekly immigration updates!

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In a recent blog post, we covered the basics of digital and social media marketing strategies for immigration lawyers, which was based on a webinar with immigration attorneys and entrepreneurs John Khosravi and Roman Zelichenko. This article is going to get a little more practical and discuss specific tactics that you’ll be able to implement to actually grow your firm’s brand and business using digital marketing and social media

We’re going to dive into how to best use Facebook, LinkedIn, and Youtube as online platforms for connecting with prospective immigration clients and, as a bonus strategy, we’ll go over the importance of building an email list to grow your audience.

Let’s jump right in, and since Facebook is so closely tied to the origins of social media as we know it, we’ll start there.

Facebook is the largest social media platform in the world and is great for immigration lawyers who are just getting started

Despite the recent Facebook outage that both upset millions of small business owners and sent millions of users to rival platforms like Twitter and TikTok, Facebook’s numbers speak for themselves: Facebook is the largest social media platform in the world with over 2 billion active users. Over 70% of Facebook users worldwide are between the ages of 18 and 44.

Most people think of Facebook as a place to run ads — indeed, Facebook’s advertising platform is relatively low-cost and easy to use. But for some law firms, especially those just starting out, paying for marketing is often out of the question.

So how does an immigration law firm use Facebook to grow without spending money?

Here are two simple ways you can market your immigration law firm on Facebook without paying for ads.

Creating a Facebook business page.

You can and should list your business contact information on the page,  including your phone number, email address, and website. Allowing people to contact you through your Facebook page or the Facebook Messenger app can be incredibly helpful, especially when you consider that 98% of Facebook users say they prefer to use the app on their phones.

Create or participate in relevant Facebook Groups.

Creating a Facebook Group specifically for your niche and/or your specific location can help you communicate with your local community by advertising events, hosting Q&A sessions for group members, posting updates on regulatory or other legal changes, and messaging directly with potential or even existing clients.

You can also participate in existing Facebook groups, whether immigration-related or those that are related to your target audience, geographic location, or other criteria. Plus, the more you interact in other Facebook groups, the better you’ll be at managing your own!

Facebook isn’t just for baby pictures and vacation videos - it’s one of the world’s most robust social media platforms for small businesses.

However, if you are looking for a more strictly business-focused social media platform where fellow lawyers, corporate employers, employees and others spend their time, consider LinkedIn.

Use LinkedIn to establish your immigration law firm’s authority and grow your professional network

LinkedIn has over 750 million users and is actively encouraging businesses to market themselves through the platform, and we have to look no further than LinkedIn itself to get started in learning how to use it for marketing. In their marketing blog, we find strategies from successful content creators to make your LinkedIn profile stand out along with other helpful tips.

One of the areas in which LinkedIn beats other social media platforms is trust. According to LinkedIn, in a study conducted by leading marketing research firm Nielsen, the vast majority of respondents find firms with a presence on LinkedIn “more professional,” “higher quality,” and “more respectable.”

So how do you take advantage of that established perception of LinkedIn being a legitimizing social media platform and use it to your advantage?

1. Interact with colleagues, clients, prospective clients and others. Like, comment on and share the posts of others, especially existing clients, prospective clients or immigration law colleagues, and especially as they relate to the type of immigration work you specialize in. Not only does this make you a source of information, but your connections will likely do the same for you, which increases your visibility. Social media is not passive: in order to be visible and become known, you have to engage, participate, and connect.
2. Focus your profile page on what you can do for others, not your accolades or diplomas. The most important place on LinkedIn is your profile, and if your content gets someone to visit your profile, make sure you’ve made clear exactly what value you bring and to whom. For example, in your headline, which is right below your name, instead of writing “Top-rated immigration attorney,” or “Managing Immigration Law Firm Partner,” which can sound self-promotional and not very substantive, consider writing something like, “We help family members reunite with family in the US” or “Helping athletes and artists immigrate to the US.”

Once you’ve updated your LinkedIn profile and started engaging with other LinkedIn users, it’s time to start posting original content that shows your expertise, shares a bit about you as an immigration attorney, and builds your personal brand. All of this, at the end of the day, translates into growth for your law firm.

If you’re just getting started with posting on LinkedIn, here are a few specific tips to keep in mind:

• Add a lot of white space to your post. Make sure to use white space to break up longer strings of text into short paragraphs to make them easier to read. This is especially important given that most LinkedIn users are on the mobile app, where long blocks of text are hard to read.
• Get people’s attention by starting with a hook. You’ll need to draw people in at the very beginning of your post so that they decide to stop scrolling and read what you have to say. To do this, try starting your post with something that will entice the reader to click on “See More” to read your full post, especially if it’s longer. For example, “I’m excited to share that…” or “Important immigration update…”
• After you post, stay active as other users comment on it. For the first few hours after your post, try to respond to comments as quickly as possible. It shows your followers that you are truly social and willing to build a relationship with them, which makes it more likely that they’ll engage with or comment on your future posts, which has a snowball effect of more engagement leading to more followers and thus more business.
• Connect with people who engage with or comment on your post. If someone who you’re not connected with likes or comments or shares your post, be sure to send them a connection request - keep in mind they don’t have to be in the same professional space as you. Indeed, there are a lot of benefits to having a LinkedIn audience that is professionally diverse. For example, if you focus on business immigration, try connecting with international tax or HR professionals or in-house recruiters since there’s a chance you can work together in the future.
• Thank your connections when they engage with you, at least in the beginning. If someone you’re already connected to has engaged with, commented on or shared your post, send them a private “thank you!” message. Not only is it a nice thing to do, it can also serve as positive reinforcement. When your connections know that you appreciate their engagement, they’re more likely to do it again in the future.

Both Facebook and LinkedIn allow you to post a variety of content, such as posts, videos, stories, and livestreams. If you want to focus on only one style of content and are comfortable being on camera (at least your voice), consider YouTube.

Create an immigration law YouTube channel to deliver value, build a community, and grow your business through video

According to the Pew Research Center, YouTube and Reddit are the only two social media platforms seeing “statistically significant growth” since 2019. YouTube is also the second most used search engine in the world, after Google (incidentally both of which are owned by parent company Alphabet Inc.), and is responsible for 37% of mobile internet traffic.

One other impressive, but perhaps intimidating metric is the number of YouTube channels in existence: more than 37 million. That might leave you thinking, “how can I possibly compete with all those channels?” At first glance it seems impossible, but when you think about it, most YouTube channels are based around incredibly specific topics that aren’t related to immigration.

In other words, you won’t actually be competing with YouTube channels about video games, DIY wood cabins, cooking tutorials from the Great Depression or the millions of other hyper-specific niche topics out there, even though those channels have hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of subscribers. Instead, there’s actually a small number of immigration-related channels on YouTube, which means that you have the ability to garner an audience, even if somewhat small at first, provide them with informative content, and grow your immigration law firm’s brand through video.

So, how should you get started on YouTube?

Start with what you have.

Record a few videos on your phone, practice looking at the camera, pace your delivery, and be aware of your tone of voice. People want to see content that’s engaging, relatable, and educational, so put your knowledge at the forefront and make sure your videos leave people with at least one takeaway.

One really important task in the beginning is to create enough valuable content to help you accumulate watch time (i.e. how many hours visitors to your channel have watched your content). This is essential because the more watch time you get, the more YouTube’s algorithm will recommend your videos to other viewers of similar content, helping you reach a wider audience.

Use other platforms to invite viewers to your YouTube channel.

If you have a blog on your website, or an active page on another platform like LinkedIn or Facebook, share your YouTube videos there and invite people to watch those videos on your channel. Ask your viewers and subscribers to share your videos with others who may find them helpful - you can add this to your “call to action” at the beginning and end of each of your videos.

Consider buying the right tools to make your videos truly stand out

While getting started with just your smartphone is fine, you can really increase the quality of your videos dramatically by purchasing just a few pieces of equipment, like a webcam or camera, light, and microphone. There are usually options within virtually every budget. Not only does this make the viewing experience better, it also shows that you’re serious about your content, which will reflect positively on your brand.

Finally, let’s talk about email - one of the oldest tools in our toolshed, but still one of the most powerful.

Email is still one of the most powerful ways to build your immigration law firm’s brand and business

You may know what email is, but have you ever thought about it as a marketing channel? Billions of people use email around the world, and hundreds of billions of emails are sent each day, which means reaching people via email can be extremely successful, if done correctly.

The most important thing to think about, however, is that unlike social media platforms that only show your content to your followers and other users if the algorithm decides to do so, email gives you a direct link to every single person whose email address you have. Social media algorithms change - content that reaches thousands of people one day can reach virtually no one the next - while email doesn’t. With social media, your fate is in the hands of the social media company. With email, your fate is in your own hands. That’s what makes email marketing so powerful.

On the flip side, you need to get email addresses with the owners’ consent, which is the hard part. Well, this is where our discussion about social media platforms comes into play.

Hubspot, a leading marketing and sales management platform, has a great post on 39 creative methods of building an email list using a number of methods, including leveraging the social media platforms we mentioned above.

For example, you could create exclusive, valuable content, such as immigration updates, that only mailing list subscribers receive. You could periodically offer free consultations to subscribers. You could also  promote your email list across your Facebook, LinkedIn  or YouTube accounts.

Increased marketing leads to more clients!

No matter what platform you choose to focus on for your online marketing, the message is clear: all of them have potential if done correctly and consistently. You can build an audience, get new clients and grow your firm successfully through Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, email or a number of other platforms. The most important thing is for you to determine which platform is best for you, and commit to it.

Once you commit and start seeing success, streamlining your firm’s case and document management will become increasingly important, so you can handle the increased volume. That’s where Docketwise comes in.

Docketwise can help you streamline and digitize your practice, so that you can spend more of your time building your online presence and marketing your practice, or simply keeping up with all the new work coming your way.

From a full library of immigration forms to client questionnaires in multiple languages to an industry-leading set of API integrations, we help you stay up to date on all your cases, communicate easily with your clients, and otherwise build and manage your firm. If you want to learn more about Docketwise, schedule a demo at the link below, or sign up for our Immigration Briefings newsletter for daily and weekly immigration updates!

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When you think about marketing, visual advertising probably comes to mind, like press releases, newspaper print ads, and even billboards. But marketing has changed. In our recent post about how to build a successful family-based immigration practice, we discussed the importance of making client service and expert knowledge your strongest marketing tools.

Today, we will discuss three simple steps to create a marketing strategy for your immigration law firm: 1) building your knowledge, 2) focusing on your service, and 3) sharing both through your online presence. For more details and examples on the marketing ideas we will cover in this article, check out Docketwise’s webinar on How to Market Your Immigration Law Firm on YouTube.

Ditch the old-school marketing mindset - in 2021 and beyond it’s all online.

Once upon a time, law firms would put ads in the Yellow Pages or their local Chamber of Commerce’s Directory and wait for the phone to ring. When the internet came out, they may have added a website with a news section that featured a few links that didn’t get updated very often. But the common denominator of old-school marketing was crossing your fingers and hoping prospective clients noticed you.

Today, it’s not enough to wait for clients to reach out to you. One of the most important things to have in 2021 and beyond is a robust online presence. What’s on the internet about you and how you share what you know is a form of marketing, so you have to make sure to change your mindset from paying for ad space and waiting for the phone to ring to creating value for your prospective customers and going to them directly.

In other words, you have to put high value content on the internet that shows your expertise and your value. There’s a lot to unpack here as far as the what, where, and how, so let’s jump right in.

A simple strategy for online marketing for immigration lawyers: the triangular approach

During the webinar, John Khosravi, an expert immigration lawyer and mentor to other immigration lawyers, suggests marketing your immigration law firm following a triangular approach.

First, remember that everything you do and learn professionally can be content.

As an immigration lawyer, you’re constantly acquiring knowledge. That’s not limited to CLEs, legal webinars and books - you acquire knowledge every time you work on a case, deal with a new client, correspond with the government, etc. Think about all these experiences as sharable content that can educate other immigration lawyers and, of course, your target audience. Share these experiences to the extent that you can, of course while taking attorney-client privilege into consideration.

It doesn’t have to be fancy either — record a video on your phone, write a quick post, whichever format fits your platform best, and share something you learned about preparing a certain type of case, timelines you’re seeing around receipt or approval notices, etc.

Second, deliver excellent service and ask for online recommendations and reviews.

Great service is a marketing system in itself. When people have great experiences, they share them with others, so every time you work with a client that has a great experience, ask them for a review. Here are some examples of how to ask your clients for a review and how to set expectations for what you’re looking for.

And remember, if they review you on Avvo, LinkedIn, Facebook or some other public platform, you can always copy / paste that review onto your law firm website, share a screenshot or snippet of that review on your personal or your firm’s LinkedIn profile, and more. And if they give you a private review via email (sometimes clients give feedback unprompted, especially if they’re really happy!) ask them if you can use that language publicly. Or better yet, send them a link to your Avvo, etc. profile and ask them to copy and paste it there!

Third, use social media to showcase your knowledge, services, and personality.

You may think that social media is oversaturated and there is nothing you can bring to the table that hasn’t already been done. If you think that way, remember one thing: you’re the only one of you. Even if you’re saying the exact same thing as five other people, those other people don’t have your experiences, education, or personality. Your voice is unique.

For example, let’s look at immigration attorney and social media influencer Jacob Sapochnick, who has amassed over a million followers across multiple social media platforms, and who uses social media to share immigration updates, give professional advice, share parts of his personal life and, all throughout, market his services.

How did he do it? Experimentation. After creating all sorts of different types of content, Jacob looked at how people were responding to his content and made changes along the way. For example, he discovered that his advice videos with voiceovers were doing well, so he concentrated on producing more of that type of content, and people responded in kind.

So where is the triangle in this strategy? Well, the more knowledge you have, the better the service you can provide to your clients, and the more relatable and helpful your online content will be. As a result, your audience — and your client list — grows.

Refining your digital marketing strategy by choosing a niche and the right social media platform

Later on in the webinar, immigration lawyer-turned-entrepreneur Roman Zelichenko dug deeper into how to think about implementing your newfound marketing strategy: pick a niche and a platform.

Choose a niche

When it comes to marketing, especially when you’re starting out, choosing a niche within immigration can help you separate yourself from the herd of the classic “big experience, personalized service” kind of slogan often touted by immigration attorneys. Pick a niche, whether it’s focused on a particular visa type (O-1 attorney for musicians), a particular region or language (Tagalog-speaking immigration attorney), a particular industry (immigration for the pharmaceutical industry), etc., and focus on learning and doing whatever you need to be an expert in that niche. Then focus your marketing accordingly.

You may think that niching down is limiting or scary, but what it does is establish you as an absolute expert in that particular segment, which is easier to attain (and more believable) than being an expert in all aspects of immigration. You tend to attract clients that resonate with your niche, and therefore trust you to understand something about them that other immigration lawyers might not. That’s quite literally what separates you from your competitors.

And as for growth, well those clients will likely continue to have immigration-related needs, and if you provide great service, they will continue to come to you because they trust you. Plus you can always eventually expand beyond your niche - outgrowing your niche would be a good problem to have!

Choose a platform

Just because there are a number of social media platforms out there doesn’t mean you have to use all of them. So instead of focusing on being everywhere, focus on being somewhere and show up there 100%

This way, you end up building by posting relevant content, replying to comments and engaging with those looking at and engaging with your content.

It’s important to remember that not all social media platforms are created equal but all can be valuable. Here are some quick facts to consider about five of the major social media platforms for immigration lawyers:

• LinkedIn remains a professionally-minded social media platform where people share mostly business-related content, work updates, job openings and more. However, over the past few years it’s really become more social than ever before, with the addition of video capabilities, live-streaming, “stories” and more. If you focus on employment-based or investor immigration, you can connect with your prospective clients here. If you do family-based immigration, you can still leverage LinkedIn to network with colleagues, industry professionals and more.
• Facebook, while incredibly saturated, is still very powerful. One of the best features of Facebook right now is Facebook Groups, where over 1 billion people around the world gather online each month. Facebook tends to be better suited for family-based immigration lawyers since that’s the more “personal” side of immigration and Facebook is where people bring their “personal” selves rather than their business selves. That said, business immigration lawyers should at least still have a presence on Facebook and also look into leveraging Groups.
• YouTube has some of the highest viewership of all the social media platforms. It’s also the second largest search engine after Google, which owns YouTube. This means that if you create compelling long-form video content that’s educational and informative, you can build a sizable and loyal YouTube following and see growth in everything from your client base to speaking and other PR opportunities.  Moreover, relatively speaking, there are only a handful of immigration law channels with more than 1,000 subscribers. YouTube has great untapped potential for the immigration industry. YouTube reaches so many people that it can likely be used by both family-based and other more business-oriented immigration practitioners, though historically, family-based immigration is more prevalent on the platform.
• Instagram and TikTok are being grouped together here, as they are both examples of social media platforms that have transformed over the years from travel and lunch photos and teenage dance videos to legitimate sources of information and networking for professionals across industries. Both platforms support video, although Instagram also supports photos, and both favor short, bite-sized pieces of content rather than longer, in-depth pieces. These platforms are better-suited for family-based immigration content since the platform tends to attract less business-related content.

Ultimately, choosing the platform to focus on is a personal choice. That said, consider the niche you want to focus on, what platform your target audience is likely using, and what you feel comfortable with (i.e. are you better at writing or being in front of a camera?), and focus 100% on that platform for at least 6-9 months. Once you get truly established there, then consider expanding to other platforms.

Wrapping Up: Easy steps you can take today to improve your immigration law firm’s marketing

At the end of the day, you are the most powerful tool in your marketing arsenal. Yes, marketing requires time and energy, as well as some creativity. But the reality is that as a practicing immigration attorney, a lot of your daily work can be great content. From celebrating client wins to sharing insights when something rare happens, providing value to your target audience via your digital marketing presence is key to growing your brand and your firm.

Now that you’re determined to focus some more time on marketing, streamlining your firm’s case and document management is more important than ever, so you can save time and energy for more creative marketing work. Docketwise can help you streamline and digitize your practice, so that you can use your time building your online presence and marketing your practice rather than following up with clients or manually inputting data.

From a full library of immigration forms to client questionnaires in multiple languages to an industry-leading set of API integrations, we help you stay up to date on all your cases, communicate easily with your clients, and otherwise build and manage your firm. If you want to learn more about Docketwise, schedule a demo at the link below, or sign up for our Immigration Briefings newsletter for daily and weekly immigration updates!

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Exciting news! We've added some highly requested updates to our invoicing this month, we hope you love them. Without further ado:

Global Invoice Numbering

When you create a new invoice, we automatically number it based on the number of invoices previously created for that particularly client. For example, a new invoice for a new client will start from scratch at number 1.

Now we've added a Global Invoice Numbering option to Invoice settings. This will give each new invoice its own unique invoice number based on the number of invoices created for all of your firm's clients.

When you turn on this setting, your existing invoices will be unaffected. However your next invoice will be numbered up from the total number of invoices created by your firm. You can edit this beginning number from your Invoice Settings.

Saved Charges

We've made it easy to create Saved Charges in your account for common types of services or expenses (e.g. Consultation, Adjustment of Status Petition, I-485 Filing Fees etc.). You can save time creating invoices by bulk importing Saved Charges instead of starting from scratch.

Read more about creating Saved Charges on our Help Center.

Dates on Time Entries and Charges

We've added dates to Time Entries and Charges so you and your clients understand when a particular service was performed or fee was incurred. You can edit the dates for past or future services and expenses.

Customize your Firm's Information

You can now choose which information about your firm you want to display in an Invoice. You can choose to hide or show your firm's address, email and phone number from your Invoice Settings.

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Starting anything new is overwhelming, and it may be hard to decide what exactly you need in order to take on your new venture. Luckily, you usually need much less than you think, even when your new venture is a family-based immigration law practice.

We recently hosted a webinar on building a successful family-based immigration law practice, and we wanted to follow up on that webinar with this article that dives into some of the topics discussed during the webinar and introduces new ideas as well. If you’re just getting started with your law firm or simply want to refresher on some important, fundamental topics, this article is for you.

And the reality is that there are thousands of immigration lawyers currently practicing in the US. So if you want to be more than just a name, your first step in building a successful family-based immigration practice is to set yourself apart from the very start.

How can you do that?

Well, there are two high-level principles to keep in mind as well as some specific things you can do to get on the path to success with your family immigration law practice. So let’s dive into some of these high-level principles first and then explore specific best practices.

Build your firm centered around client success and trust

The absolute first thing you should think about is who your ideal clients are and their greatest needs. Is your ideal client someone from a particular part of the world that cares about an attorney who speaks their language? Is your ideal client someone who is looking to file a certain type of case that you specialize or want to specialize in?

After all, your job at the end of the day is helping your clients succeed, and so in order to set your practice apart, it’s important that you create a firm that focuses on your clients’ success first and foremost.

Once you’ve determined your ideal client and what problem you want to solve for them, you have to build your clients’ trust. In an article on building client trust, Thomson Reuters lists five ways to build client trust:

• setting proper expectations,
• responding to client communications,
• making your client feel like you’re in the trenches with them,
• being a great, ethical attorney, and
• advocating for them.

At the end of the day, you have to make sure that your client feels safe with you and truly believes that you will take care of them and their case. Even if you can’t achieve a positive result in their case, a client that feels like their attorney has done everything they could may still come out happy with the representation, even if they aren’t happy with the legal outcome.

Relationships are key when establishing your family-based immigration practice

There are two ways to approach building relationships - locally and in person, and virtually and outside of your local area.

First, looking at the local approach, it’s important to take stock of what immigrant communities may be close to where you live and work. Best case scenario, knowing or sharing the language and culture of these communities can give you an edge in offering your services there.

On the other hand, if there are immigrant communities that can benefit from your services that you may not have much in common with, you can still try and establish a relationship with them by going to community events, providing free value, learning their language, and so on.

At the end of the day your firm is your business, so don’t rule out reaching out to any and all immigrant communities that could benefit from your work.

Next, let’s take a virtual and geographically broader approach. There are so many ways to put yourself out there and make yourself available, whether through your website, a Facebook page, online webinars and more. Since immigration is a federal practice, you can represent clients in all 50 states and around the world.

But prospective clients won’t reach out to you if they don’t know how, so it is important that you provide clear contact information, and instructions on how to reach out to you, and give clients multiple options for how to contact you, such as via social media, WhatsApp, your website, an email address and perhaps even a phone number. And if you have a physical office and take walk-in clients, sharing your address can work too.

One specific hack is joining and being active on Facebook groups. There are seemingly endless Facebook groups centered around languages, ethnic backgrounds, countries of origin and more attributes that you can join and add value to by answering immigration questions that may come up, offering free tips and news updates and more. Be prepared for lots of connection requests and direct messages with questions if you do it right!

There are also immigration lawyer Facebook groups where you can ask questions and connect with others in the field, like Nerdy Immigration Lawyers, an active group with over 5,000 members where immigration professionals ask and answer questions and share insights.

If you’re looking for something more formal, the American Immigration Lawyers Association is a nationwide voluntary association of immigration lawyers with numerous local chapters which focuses on providing immigration-specific professional education and practice development resources to help lawyers build their practices and share their knowledge.

Finally, once you’ve successfully worked with a few clients, you can start taking advantage of the best marketing tool any immigration lawyer could have: word of mouth referrals.

Getting a word-of-mouth referral automatically builds rapport and establishes a relationship between you and your prospective client, which is a powerful way to build your practice. Ask your clients to recommend you to others who may need your help, and take care of every next client that comes in just as you did the previous one. Immigrant communities are very close-knit and referrals from friends and family carry a lot of weight.

The things you need (or don’t need) to run a successful family-based immigration practice

It’s easy to think you need expensive tech tools and a huge office space to seem like a legitimate family-based immigration practice, but the truth is that you don’t. Yes, it’s important to look professional, but it’s more important to focus on being genuinely helpful, listen to clients, and provide solutions they can easily put into action.

So here are a few things to consider when starting your family-based immigration practice that will likely help you succeed.

Do you really need an office?

Ideally, yes, having a physical office can be great for your law practice. Offering in-person consultations makes a difference to many clients, especially because immigration is deeply personal. So if you can, receive your clients in-person as much as possible.

However, a traditional office with a traditional lease may not be necessary anymore. You can have a desk at a co-working space and then use a closed-door office when you need to see clients in person. Alternatively you can share office space with another, perhaps more established firm that has a traditional office. Oftentimes law firms with empty desks or offices are open to sub-leasing them to solo or small attorneys, which can also be a win-win since you can end up co-counseling or otherwise working with that law firm.

And of course in the end, you can also have a fully virtual practice. In 2021 and beyond, with so many people becoming more and more comfortable discussing serious matters on video, having a virtual law firm with no office is possible too. One recommendation here, though, is to be clear about this to your prospective clients. Some people may still prefer to see their attorney in person, so be prepared to either make arrangements for that or turn those clients away.

Ultimately, make sure your clients feel comfortable, whatever your setup. Because if your clients aren’t comfortable, it’s going to be hard for them to trust you, and as you know, trust is one of the most important facets of the attorney-client relationship.

Liability insurance is essential

You need liability insurance in order to protect yourself against malpractice claims. In some states, it’s even required by the bar to buy liability or malpractice insurance. You can check malpractice insurance requirements by state on the American Bar Association’s website, and double check that your policy has litigation support in case of a claim. Do your homework and don't go with the first liability insurance policy you find - shop around and get a policy that fits you and your practice.

Technology is a must in 2021 and beyond

If you’re just starting your firm or looking for ways to make your existing firm more successful, maximizing your use of appropriate tech tools is a must. And we don’t just mean case management platforms - that’s a given. There are a number of other technologies you can leverage to streamline or automate every part of your business. Let’s explore just a few of them.

Google Workspace is very user friendly, and makes it simple to register a domain name and then set up your firm’s email address accordingly. If you want to make a simple and clean website, web hosting platforms like Wordpress and Squarespace have inexpensive plans for businesses that will allow you to build a professional, polished site and connect it with your Google Suite add-on for email and other tools like Good Docs, Sheets and Calendar.  

Client communication is important too. Giving your cell phone to clients is a personal decision, but if you don't feel comfortable sharing your personal digits, set up a business-only phone number. Voice over IP (VOIP) services can be a simple, inexpensive way to set up a phone number without getting a landline. Google Voice is an option here too if you’re already in the Google universe.

Managing your finances is crucial to running a successful family-based immigration practice. Unless you’re also a CPA, it’s probably a good idea to talk to an accountant to go over your options for managing your firm’s finances. Getting bookkeeping and invoicing software like Quickbooks can help you stay on top of your billing and keep all your clients in the same place, and invoicing with tools like LawPay allow you to stay compliant with ABA regulations, manage IOLTA accounts and more.

In fact, Docketwise has integrations with multiple platforms for accounting and credit card processing, including Quickbooks and LawPay. The integration with LawPay creates a link for payment when your invoices go out, giving clients options to pay either on the client portal or through the link sent with the invoice. Payments reflect on the Docketwise invoice and are visible as transactions in the user’s LawPay account. The integration with QuickBooks is available on Docketwise Suite and Docketwise Enterprise versions. Creating an invoice in Docketwise creates a corresponding invoice in QuickBooks, and so when payments are recorded for bills in Docketwise, Docketwise Suite or Enterprise will push the completed transactions to Quickbooks for easy bookkeeping.

Docketwise can help you manage your family-based immigration practice

While the start of your own practice may be a “season of hustle,” make sure you take time to set up your practice the right way from the start. You can only be at your best for your clients when your firm is effective and working for you, not against you.

We designed Docketwise to help you do just that.

From a full library of immigration forms to client questionnaires in multiple languages to an industry-leading set of API integrations, we help you stay up to date on all your cases, communicate easily with your clients, and otherwise build and manage your firm. If you want to learn more about Docketwise, schedule a demo at the link below, or sign up for our Immigration Briefings newsletter for daily and weekly immigration updates!

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USCIS has released new editions of Forms I-765 and I-765WS dated 08/25/2020 which cannot be accepted by USCIS if postmarked before that date.

The 08/25/2020 editions of these forms are now available on Docketwise and have a note next to them identifying them as such in our drop-down list of forms. The existing editions of Form I-765 and I-765WS dated 12/26/2019 will remain available on Docketwise until August 25th.

On the morning of August 25th all I-765 and I-765WS forms created in Docketwise will be automatically converted to the 08/25/2020 editions.

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The immigration policy preferences of the Trump administration are embodied in the Reforming American Immigration for a Strong Economy (RAISE) Act, a piece of proposed legislation which has been introduced into Congress by Senators Tom Cotton of Arkansas and David Perdue of Georgia. The RAISE Act would amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to eliminate the Diversity Visa Program, to limit the President’s discretion in setting the number of refugees admitted annually to the United States, to reduce the number of family-sponsored immigrants, to create a new nonimmigrant classification for the parents of adult United States citizens, and for other purposes. Specifically, the bill would:

• cut legal immigration by half, reducing the number of green cards from more than 1 million to about 500,000
• lower capped family categories from 226,000 green cards presently to 88,000
• remove pathways for siblings and adult children of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents to apply for permanent lawful residency status in the U.S.
• eliminate all family sponsorship beyond spouses and minor children of U.S. citizens and LPRs
• reducing the age limit for minor children from 21 to 18
• eliminate the “parents of US citizens” category of permanent immigration, instead allowing them to come for five years at a time uner a renewable “W-visa” while requiring U.S. sponsors to demonstrate the parents have health-care coverage and accept full responsibility for their parent’s economic support. Parents would be barred from any public benefit, even provided by a state or local government (a provision that will probably be challenged in the courts)
• create a “points system” for the selection of immigrants coming via employer sponsorship
• impose a cap of 50,000 refugee admissions a year
• eliminate the Diversity Visa lottery
• invalidates any petition in a category being eliminated by the RAISE Act (and any application for an immigrant visa based on such a petition) if the petition was filed after August 2, 2017, the date the RAISE Act bill was introduced into Congress
• prohibits naturalization of a person, if they ever received means tested public benefits while a permanent resident unless the sponsor on their affidavit of support has reimbursed the federal government the cost of such benefits

These changes would be the most significant alterations to the Immigration and Nationality Act since the current version of the Act, which created our present family-based immigration system, was passed in 1965. The RAISE Act is nowhere close to being passed at the time of this writing, and seems to lack enough support at the present time to be put to a vote in the Senate.

James Pittman is co-founder of Docketwise and was previously engaged in the private practice of US Immigration Law. He also regularly teaches Continuing Legal Education (CLE) classes on immigration law topics and legal ethics. He is admitted to practice in New York and New Jersey and is a graduate of Northeastern University School of Law.

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