I’m so bummed. I picked our immigration attorney to handle the appeal of Chapin’s citizenship denial. She seemed good, has many years experience and has been chair of several local bar committees. But we’re having major problems with her. She said she was going to file a large brief and ended up filing only five pages, promising a second supplemental brief after that. She said she was going to tell us when we got close to our $5,000 retainer… and then charged us $4,700 just for the small brief (even though I had sent her several cases to save on research charges and transcribed a two-hour interview tape to also save money). Finally, I would think it should be standard practice to send copies of filings to clients, but despite multiple (10?) requests, we have yet to receive anything. She finally promised to send copies on the 4th of December, but we have yet to receive anything. She replied today, finally, and said that she mailed the documents personally on the 5th of December and is shocked that we haven’t received them. Mind you, she filed these documents in early October. When we first met with her she told us that once we file a notice of her appearance, withdrawing would mess everything up because she would have not notify the USCIS of the change in attorneys. This is really upsetting because a) that $5,000 was a lot of money for us and b) obviously we’re worried about upsetting things by switching attorneys at this point.

Her e-mail today suggests we come in for an appointment. Oh yes, because that way she can charge us $180/hour while she talks and talks and TALKS (she tends to go on and on). Chapin will be so pissed when he wakes up and I tell him.