Don't trust DMCA with your immigration case. We went in for help with the family immigration process. When scheduling the consultation I told them that it was for family immigration that involved a J1 visa so they could be prepared.They assigned our case to Gunther. We came in with everything that was needed for the consultation, visas, marriage license, a timeline of travel dates, etc. The only part of the law that Gunther quoted was wrong. He said that the time she needed to spend living in her home country, Brazil (this is a requirement if you have had a cultural and education exchange J1 visa), had to be consecutive days, not cumulative, meaning she would have to spend the entire 2 years in Brazil all at once. Thinking maybe he meant cumulative and not consecutive, I said the law says it is aggregate days. He said I was wrong. I told him that I had read the immigration law that governs J1 visas and he said very arrogantly "Well I can look it up if you want" I said that would be great. We sat in silence while he looked it up for a few. Then he said "Well I think its best we just go over everything and I will look it up later" At that point we gave him the timeline we had prepared with the dates that she had been outside the US and a sum of the total time spent in Brazil for vacations as well as the time that she had resided there. My wife said she had already spent 13 months residing there after she got her J1 and he interrupted saying "13 months isn't 2 years, is it? So it doesn't count" He said it with such a condescending tone and attitude like she was a child. It is one thing to be condescending when you are right but it is completely different when you are wrong. Again I said that the law states it is aggregate not cumulative. He said he normally I doesn't do family immigration cases but works on business immigration cases (Later we got an email from him where he admitted that he was wrong but tried spinning it in a way that made him not look so bad by saying "The good news is that the regulation at 22 CFR 41.63(a)(1)(iii) allows for the period of stay in Brazil to be cumulative" It wasn't news to us, that is what we told him to begin with. He didn't include an apology for being wrong or for treating us like idiots when he was actually in the wrong) The rest of the consultation was about how much it would cost to hire them.
After our consultation I talked to the front desk and said that I felt like I deserved a refund of my 100 dollar consultation fee since they assigned my case to someone who doesn't practice family immigration and treated my wife like that. They were apologetic and told me they would send an email to one of the partners, Curtwright, include me on the email detailing my concern and my request for a refund and someone would get back to me later that day. I never received the email. I called the next day at 10AM and the person I talked to said no email was sent so they would send an email and would include the CEO of the company (cant remember her name) to make sure that someone gets back to me. I didn't get an email and no one reached out. I called back @ 345 that afternoon, talked to the same person. She said she would go and see if Curtwright would take my call. After a little bit she came back and said Curtwright wanted to schedule me to come in and talk to someone else. I asked if this was to talk about immigration or talk about my refund. She said it was to talk about immigration and Curtwright said no refund would be given. I told her I had already wasted my time with them (and apparently $100) Why would I take time off work again to go in to a law firm that originally assigned my case to someone that doesn't normally do family immigration. Now I am just out $100 and the time I took off of work.
Do not waste time with these people. They definitely didn't treat us decently or with respect. Even after being treated that way I gave them the chance to do the right thing and refund me and they didn't. read more
