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Comment by sandworm101 | Hacker News Reader

So long as all the various agencies still demand paper documents, nobody can ever claim to be "turbotax" for immigration. This is slightly faster/cheaper, but is nowhere near the speed to justify that analogy.

Question: Who actually submits the documents? The 'How it works' is not clear.

"The application, upon completion, is sent to a SimpleCitizen-approved immigration lawyer for review to ensure users have the best application possible." ...But then what?

One of the reasons you hire a lawyer is so that lawyer can stand in for you. Part of that is that they can submit documents and requests on your behalf. Does SimpleCitizen seek power of attorney from customers? That would open a nest of licensing issues. Note the careful language. Are these "review" lawyers giving advice or not?

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My spouse and I used it recently. It's actually MUCH, MUCH faster and far less overwhelming than filling out all of the paper documents. You answer the questions, it puts all of your data into the right places on the forms. A lawyer looks it over to be sure there are no errors and that you're not missing any information (the forms are in no way self-explanatory) - for example, for us they caught a question that we had interpreted in a different way and allowed us to correct it to the right interpretation and relevant documentation. After that, they print, assemble and mail you the (hundreds of pages) packet, so all you have to do is check it over, sign it, attach the filing fees, and mail it off.

No power of attorney, no standing in for you, just a guide for a very complicated process. From what we've seen, it's generally intended for people who would otherwise DIY the process, but want a little more peace of mind that they're doing it right. It's not really meant for those with complex situations that need a lawyer.

>> ... but want a little more peace of mind that they're doing it right.

That;s the danger. If they are giving advice that results in you submitting different answers that you otherwise would have, they are boarding on giving legal advice. It's all well and good when things work out, but when that advice goes wrong it can be very very bad for the client. That's why lawyers are licensed. These people are also handling lots of personal information that I hope would be covered by attorney-client privilege, but only if they are lawyers.

My wife also used SimpleCitizen, you can pay for a lawyer to green-light your paperwork before you file it. That's what we did.

Lots of lawyers are totally shit. I'm not sure the licensing is really a barrier to that.

Certainly this is the case with tax lawyers and reading through this thread there are quite a few instances with immigration lawyers.

I created something similar for a less demanding government form and comparing it to TurboTax is by far the easiest way to help people understand the value behind what the tool does.

> So long as all the various agencies still demand paper documents, nobody can ever claim to be "turbotax" for immigration. This is slightly faster/cheaper, but is nowhere near the speed to justify that analogy.

TurboTax is useful because it provides an easy interface for doing your taxes -- electronic filing is just a bonus. Say IRS only accepted paper forms. It just means that you would have to print your return documents from TurboTax and mail them (an option that is still available in TurboTax). Mailing in IRS forms is not the hard part, it's filling them out. TurboTax was able to replace tax agents for most people because it guides you through the process and does all calculations for you. eFiling is just icing on the cake.

I agree with you, the "how it works" and the workflow are not crystal clear and gives room for suspicion about the validity of the legal advice given. That being said, if the service only gives transparent and actionable information about the visas, it is already huge. I recently had an appointment with an immigration layer for an investor visa. Like any lawyer, he enjoyed drowning me under complexity to justify his $200/hour fee. I ended up with all kind of insider details about 5 different visas... We start from so far when it comes to information transparency in the administration, SimpleCitizen gives an imperfect but still very useful answer.

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