Frequently Asked Questions

Yes! One of the things we appreciate most is the beautiful diversity of the clients we serve. Our team can speak with you in English, Spanish, Hindi, Urdu, Gujarati, Croatian, Italian, and several other languages (depending on team members’ availability). 

Please do your best to inform us of your language needs when you call to schedule a consultation. If we do not have an in-house interpreter, there may be additional interpretation fees for your case. If we cannot accommodate your language needs, we may be able to refer you to another attorney if we know of one who can serve your language needs.

Please also inform us of any accommodation you may need other than language skills. If you have trouble understanding or hearing a conversation by phone, we can schedule a video phone call. No in-person meetings are scheduled between staff and clients, but we will make every effort to accommodate your needs virtually.

We do not let “friends” interpret for consultations because we need to protect confidentiality and ensure that you can speak openly about your immigration options.

Our consultation process is designed to help potential clients get the full benefit of an informed opinion from the attorney during the first meeting. It is important for a potential client to cooperate with all legal team members and their requests for documents and information to prepare for your first meeting with an attorney from our office. 

Our office works as a team. This means that you may speak with many different team members as you work with us from start to finish. No matter which staff person you are directly working with, please know that we are all collaborating and working together to help you.

Step 1: Scheduling and Paying for a Consultation: If you are interested in learning about your immigration options related to a T visa, U visa, Adjustment of Status, or any other immigration remedy, you should pay our consultation fee to reserve an appointment date. You may call us, and we can help you book online.  Our phone number is 910-509-7145.

All consultations are virtual – usually by phone. Our office does not schedule any in-person consultations. Please do not come to the office physically, but rather be ready to receive a phone call or video call as you have been instructed by staff. This is primarily for the health and safety of our staff and clients, and it also allows us the opportunity to serve people outside of our town.

Step 2: Intake Meetings with Legal Team:

General Intake: Before your call with an attorney, you can expect one or more phone calls and/or emails from our legal team. Please be cooperative as they ask for information and documents to help prepare a packet for the attorney’s review before your first phone call with the attorney. You may be asked to send scans or copies of identity documents, past immigration applications, and other materials. Our legal team may also schedule a phone call with you to ask detailed questions about your immigration and life history. 

Going through this process with our legal team will make your first call with the attorney much more helpful in understanding your options. The consultation payment you made generally includes the fees for these conversations with the legal team.

For potential clients: Before every phone call, please make sure you are in a private space, with no one else present, so that you can have a confidential conversation with your legal team. 

It is important to provide honest and complete information to our legal team – even if it seems that the questions might not apply to you – so that the attorney can later have all the information available to recommend what immigration remedy would be best for you. Our team can speak with you in English, Spanish, Hindi/Urdu, Gujarati, Croatian, and several other languages.  

Full Screening for T visa, U visa, VAWA, and other applications: For some kinds of cases, you will have more calls with our screening team who gather information the attorneys will need to understand your immigration options.

For a full screening, you can expect to spend three or more hours speaking to a member of our trained Screening Team. This means several phone calls will need to be scheduled in the weeks leading up to your appointment with the attorney. These team members ask detailed questions about your life, including your immigration history, your work history, and any criminal offenses. The consultation payment you made includes the fees for these conversations with staff, and the legal team will decide how many calls are needed. 

Step 3: Attorney Call: The legal team provides the attorney with all the information and documents you have given during the intake process. The attorney will then call you directly, with interpreters as needed, and review the information you have provided. The attorney will give you advice on your immigration options. The consultation payment you made includes the fees for this conversation with the attorney. There may be some other fees for an interpreter if we do not have that language speaker in-house, and we can inform you of that ahead of time. 

Step 4: Contract and Hiring: If you are eligible for any immigration remedies and it seems like this will be a good fit in terms of an attorney-client relationship, then after the consultation, the attorney will instruct the team to prepare a legal fee agreement (contract) for you to review.  

The contract will be sent to you by the contracts team, and it should state the pricing for our legal work, the government fees, and other expenses you can expect to pay for your case, estimated to the best of our ability. 

For most contracts, a staff member will call you to go over the contract with you in the language that is most comfortable for you. It is very important for you to participate in this contract review phone call with our staff if one is offered to you, so that you can be sure to understand everything before you sign and pay for us to begin work. 

The contract will have a deadline by which you must sign and pay in order to avoid having to go through the paid consultation process again. In most cases, there is a 90-day period during which the fee quote for a case will remain valid. A discount may be offered to those who decide to hire early. In some limited cases, payment plans are available. 

If you cannot afford our legal fees, please ask us for a referral to a pro bono (free or low cost) agency.

Step 5: Full Application Preparation: If you decide that you would like to hire us to prepare your immigration application, our work begins after you sign the contract and make an initial payment.

Our team will then take you through a more extensive process of reviewing or requesting documents that we need for your case, completing data entry, drafting the application, revising it, and finalizing it for signature. 

You can expect to hear from many members of our legal team several times during this process. Please remember that we cannot prepare the application without your cooperation, so it is essential that you are responsive to our team and provide us with all the information and documentation we ask for in a timely manner.

Step 6: Filing, Waiting, and Next Steps: Once your application is complete, our office will file it with the appropriate immigration agency. Each application is unique, and it can take the immigration agencies anywhere from several months to several years to make a decision on your application. We can let you know about the status of your application, any updates to the law, and other information that you will need to know as you wait for the decision. 

An annual consultation fee is something that may be needed for cases that take longer or need a closer look.

Your legal team will always work hard to prepare the best possible application for you, based on the many years of experience we have in immigration law. 

However, we can never promise what the result will be on your application. 

We will never be able to guarantee that your application will be approved by the agency making the decision.

Once a decision is made – whether it is an approval or denial – we may offer you another meeting to understand the next steps.

Our mailing address is:

Helen Tarokic Law, PLLC

6752 Rock Spring Road

Suite 110

Wilmington, NC 28405

We highly recommend that when you mail us something, please choose a method that allows you and us to track your mailing. Many mailing options allow you to get a tracking number – US Postal Service, FedEx, DHL, UPS, etc. 

When you send us something, it is best for you to call our office or send one of our team members an email to let us know what you have sent, as well as the tracking number.

Our legal team will advocate for you to the best of our ability as we work on the immigration matter we have agreed upon in our contract with you. We generally limit our practice to immigration law. For example, we will not provide any legal advice or work on writing a will, helping you draft business contracts, representing you in a divorce, nor do we provide criminal defense.

If any of these things intersect with your immigration status (such as getting divorced, getting arrested, etc.), we may be able to inform you of how it affects your immigration status and options.

We will also be working only on the issues that have been agreed upon in our contract. If other immigration issues arise that require time and effort from our team, you may reach out to learn your options, or our team may contact you with additional proposed contracts or requests for new legal fee payments. 

This is to maintain our ethical duty to you, to preserve our team’s ability to serve all clients, and because our contracts limit the scope of representation to specific matters.

Attorney-Client confidentiality is a legally protected relationship between attorneys and those they serve where all conversations, information, and documents exchanged are a secret subject to the rules of professional responsibility. The secrecy and privacy have to be maintained by the client as well as the legal team.

Before scheduling and having any call with the legal team, make sure that you can be in a safe and private space such that no one else can hear our conversation. From the attorney’s side, no member of our team is allowed to discuss your case with anyone outside our office without your permission.

You may also get emails from our team with a subject line that has the words “Confidential Communication” or “Confidential legal correspondence” or “Confidential and Privileged” – or something similar. This is a signal to you to keep this email and all information in it safe and private.

We understand that clients may want a family member on the call with them to help them understand the conversation or make important decisions together. Sometimes, family members who pay for the legal costs may think they should be a part of the attorney-client calls.

However, there are many reasons (including attorney-client confidentiality) why the legal team needs to speak ONLY with the client or potential client alone, at least for the first consultation and for many other meetings in the future.

Family members – please do not be alarmed or offended simply because we do not include you in a consultation. Please be understanding. Our office enforces this rule strictly.

Be in a private space – before every phone call, please make sure you are in a private space, with no one else present, so that you can have a confidential conversation with your legal team.

We have many in-house interpreters available to make sure the potential client can understand everything the attorney says (in English, Spanish, Croatian, Hindi, Urdu, and Gujarati. Other languages may require additional interpreter fees). At the first meeting with the attorney, the potential client can discuss with the attorney how they would or would not like their family members to help or be involved in their case going forward. As we decide together what steps to take, we will be guided by the client’s wishes, values, and best interests and we do our best not to intrude on their right to make decisions.

Your legal team will always work hard to prepare the best possible application for you, based on the many years of experience we have in immigration law. However, we can never promise what the result will be on your application. We will never be able to guarantee that your application will be approved by the agency making the decision.

We also cannot predict exactly how long it will take for the agency to make a decision on your case. We can sometimes provide an estimate based on what we have seen with other such immigration applications. We will stay in communication with you, and you can always ask if you have any questions.

How long will it take for us to work on and file your case? We also cannot predict that exactly, since it depends on the complexity of your case and your cooperation, but we work as efficiently as possible to serve all of our clients’ needs. How fast and accurately we work also depends on your full and honest cooperation. There are many things you can do to make sure that the work goes as smoothly as possible:

1. Cooperate with all members of our legal team. Be polite and courteous. If you have any questions, please ask.

Everyone in our office works together as a team, and we communicate to make sure your casework is properly moving forward. You may receive emails or phone calls from many different team members throughout the process – they are all being directed to work with you by your attorneys. Please treat all our staff with courtesy, just as we will do with you. It is always okay to ask questions – we want you to be fully informed about your case.

For some cases, your attorney may also direct you to contact someone outside of our law firm, such as a therapist, social worker, medical providers, accountants, Trafficking Victim Assistance Program (TVAP) staff, or others. This will all be part of the strategy for your legal case, and it is essential that you provide your full and honest cooperation with these people as well.

2. Time and communication are important! Be there with us.

Everyone’s time is valuable – yours and ours. We work hard to serve you in a timely manner, especially keeping in mind timelines or deadlines your case may require. We also must work ethically to make sure we are serving all the clients who are seeking our help. 

Please do your part to help the process go smoothly by:

• Being available on time for phone calls with our legal team. 
• Being courteous, respectful, and responsive to any team member who calls or emails you.
• Read all emails and materials that we send you and follow the instructions we give you. Ask us as soon as possible if you have any questions. 
• Responding to emails, voice messages, and any other messages from our team as quickly as possible.
• When we ask for documents or information, provide it as soon as you can, by the deadline we have set for you.

3. Tell us the complete truth, even if you have not done so in the past. 

Your legal team cannot prepare your application without your honesty. 

This means that you must provide us with the truth and that we will ask a lot of questions.

If you forget to tell us something, you can let us know you need to correct something you told us or left out by mistake. Our legal team may repeating questions in different ways and at different times to make sure you understand the questions and have had a chance to think back on your history.

Your job is to do your absolute best to be honest and cooperative with our team in a timely manner. Delaying providing the information that we need will delay your application and it might even block you from the remedy entirely.

Lying on an immigration application – or intentionally leaving important information out – can not only cause that application to be denied but could also result in serious negative immigration consequences. For this reason, we ask potential clients to be truthful and to listen carefully to questions, so that we can avoid problems with the law.

How to check case processing times: After you file your application, you will receive a Receipt Notice, which will inform you which Field Office or Service Center is processing your application. You can use this information on the USCIS website to check on your estimated processing time. https://egov.uscis.gov/processing-times/. 

USCIS says on its Processing Times website that the estimate they give is based on how long it took them to adjudicate 80% of the cases they received in the past six months. They also say what we all applicants should understand – “Each case is unique, and some cases may take longer than others. Processing times should be used as a reference point, not an absolute measure of how long your case will take to complete.” 

How to check your case status: https://egov.uscis.gov/ You can also use the Receipt Number on your Receipt Notice to check the status of your case. It will give you a short summary of the last step the agency took – for example, that they sent your Receipt Notice, or that they sent you a Request for Evidence. 

Please note: Because of the privacy protections for certain visas, NOT ALL Immigration applications can be checked using the online case status look up. For example, if you have a T-1, U-1, or VAWA application, you will not be able to see the status of that primary application. For U Visas and T Visas, you may be able to check the case status using the I-765 receipt notice for any Derivatives you also applied for (spouse, children). Please ask your attorney for advice on checking your case status if you have applied for one of these humanitarian remedies.

Useful USCIS links about checking processing times and case status:

• More information about Case Processing Times – https://egov.uscis.gov/processing-times/more-info
  • Includes how to read a Receipt Notice to find the important information you need to check your case status
• Check your Case Status online https://egov.uscis.gov/
• Check estimated processing times for your kind of application https://egov.uscis.gov/processing-times/. 

Thank you for reading along and learning more about us. We hope to help you soon!