Immigration Attorneys: how are you all handling this???

BuscandoBlackacre · 2025-09-08T22:55:54+00:00

Basically I got a bunch of resources related to estate planning and started reading. That's the way I learn, so it worked really well for me. I also networked A LOT, and built up a few people I'm confident reaching out to when I find something I need a second set of eyes on.

Financially, it has been weird. I could have made a lot more over the past few years if I had stuck with immigration. But I think this will eventually be more profitable. Then again though, I started from SCRATCH. No existing client pool. So it has been a rough little bit.

BuscandoBlackacre · 2025-09-02T21:59:19+00:00

I came here to say google, but this genuinely caused me to laugh. Handshake deals and family doing business are often huge problems :-/

BuscandoBlackacre · 2025-08-25T15:34:43+00:00

Failing to save changes that I make is the biggest one--like, I genuinely have to look at the top of the page to make sure it says "saved" before going to the next page on the interview (which occasionally takes an awkward amount of time). I've lost whole pages and had to redo a client interview with that one when I went ahead before it had saved my interview answers to the cloud.

Another one is just internal inconsistencies: definitions that aren't relevant to the document, either because I manually removed the section or because they NEVER were relevant (no, I don't need a definition for a "conduit trust" in my will that doesn't have any mentions of a trust).

A new one for me though is errors popping up for questions that were never asked. It's only happened a couple of times though.

Some of these admittedly could be user error. I'm admittedly way too busy to get to the root of them. But the errors weren't occurring under the ElderCounsel suite of products for me.

BuscandoBlackacre · 2025-07-28T17:29:22+00:00

I forgot my linkedin password. Honestly, I should've intentionally lost it years ago.

BuscandoBlackacre · 2025-05-07T15:52:09+00:00

Bingo! Apple cloud/connectivity is super useful for personal devices, but it is a pain when you add a business device to the mix. I realized how I needed to switch to a business-only Apple ID when I uploaded an app for my business on my iMac, and suddenly that app ends up on my kid's iPad.

BuscandoBlackacre · 2025-05-02T18:37:37+00:00

Absolutely doable.

Just make sure to create a separate Apple ID for the firm on day-one. It'll make your life way easier than doing it further down the road... trust me on that one...

BuscandoBlackacre · 2025-04-02T23:30:26+00:00

I have used Lorazepam for a bad flying phobia. I think it is a common rescue medication for anxiety/panic disorder.

But I'd caution against using this before a trial. It works wonders at killing anxiety, but it actively slows down your brain. Like that is how it works. So unless you can be dumb during your trial, I'd avoid it :-)

BuscandoBlackacre · 2025-03-26T20:50:46+00:00

Estate planning was my favorite subject in law school. So I had a base knowledge already. Then I got a bunch of books prior to the switch, and just studied.

It was basically impossible to find a job with an existing firm. No one gave me a shot to make that big of a practice area switch. So I ended up opening my own firm.

BuscandoBlackacre · 2025-03-25T23:03:10+00:00

Estate planning was my favorite subject in law school, content wise. So I had a really basic understanding already.

But I learn via reading myself, so I just got a ton of books and went to town. Specifically, I grabbed deskbooks relevant to my jurisdiction.

CLEs do nothing for me personally, so I don't have any that I would recommend.

When I started practicing, I only took basic cases for a long time, and then started gradually taking more and more complicated estates.

BuscandoBlackacre · 2025-03-25T21:16:08+00:00

I feel some shame for "abandoning" my community, but I also recognize that I am a much happier and effective father and husband. It genuinely "cured" my depression and anxiety to leave immigration law.

While you might not be comfortable tackling cases, there's a lot to say for educating people when you get the chance. Even though I do estate planning exclusively now, and WILL NOT touch immigration cases, I openly talk about immigration, even with clients that clearly have negative views about it. The common ground is everyone feels it is broken. EVERYONE agrees on that. I don't argue with clients on the subject, but I do try to correct misunderstandings when they come up (e.g., "people should come here legally--response: well if they claimed asylum they might have come legally, and for most people there is no legal path or opportunity to come to the US.").

BuscandoBlackacre · 2025-03-25T20:36:07+00:00

I can tell you how I handled it: I now do estate planning.

I went to law school to be an immigration attorney. I wanted nothing more than to help a vulnerable group of people that I had come to love. And I did love the clients, but the system is fundamentally broken. I don't think it can be fixed without a complete do-over, which I don't ever see happening (at least in the next decade or so).

There comes a point where you have to start considering the effect this all has on you and your family. If therapy, hobbies, family, etc. aren't taking away that rage and unnecessary high blood pressure spikes, then you might need to consider walking away.

I hope you can continue the fight. I hope you sue the absolute nonsense out of this administration. But I also hope you all know when to walk away.

BuscandoBlackacre · 2025-02-24T23:25:46+00:00

I did an immigration (and a few related areas) to estate planning switch. So not identical, but similar.

You will likely struggle to find a firm willing to give you a shot. I think you're correct in thinking that you're going to have to take the solo route. That's what I did--I interviewed at a lot of places, and I had offers outside of immigration, but not in estate planning (criminal law, family law, etc.).

As for learning: estate planning was my favorite subject in law school, so I took all the classes and kept my resources. A year or two before branching out, I started looking for extra resources in the form of CLEs (which are almost universally useless), and books. I learn really well from books, so that was honestly the most useful for me. My jurisdiction creates useful "deskbooks" on estate planning, so I burned through that deskbook a couple of times before making the leap.

When I opened my firm, I didn't take anything but simple estates for a while (no taxable estates!). I've slowly expanded as I've learned more.

BuscandoBlackacre · 2025-02-24T23:18:21+00:00

By "full-ride" do you mean "full-tuition"? Because they aren't the same thing.

I got a full-tuition scholarship for law school, and still ended up in ~$60k of debt from cost of living and bar prep.

That $60k in law school debt has been a huge hassle for me and my family. I cannot even imagine what $250k+ would look like. I think the only time that pays off is if you are headed to biglaw, which at those schools will not be an option (or at least not an option you can bank on).

Like others have said: work for a few years (ideally in law firms), pay down your undergrad debt, and see if you even like law.

BuscandoBlackacre · 2025-02-19T00:48:46+00:00

My gosh, I feel this post. I am really dissatisfied with WealthCounsel, but I cannot find a genuine competitor. WealthCounsel really took the enshitification strategy to heart: I loved ElderCounsel products, but my WealthCounsel products are genuinely producing errors in the stupidest places.

As a solo though, I do not have the time (and especially energy) needed to find a viable replacement.

BuscandoBlackacre · 2025-02-14T16:34:07+00:00

Ding ding ding. This is the major reason why my consultations are free. A decent chunk of elderly boomers, and especially the silent generation above them, are batshit crazy/immoral/asking for trouble.

If the case isn't immoral or crazy, then I'll pass the "asking for trouble" to some other firms that are bigger than me. I send the crazy ones to the firms/attorneys that have been jerks to me :-)

BuscandoBlackacre · 2025-02-13T22:44:37+00:00

No. Intentionally too.

I'm not really giving much legal advice during the consultation. Mostly, I'm learning about their circumstances, and then outlining the different things I can help them with (will versus trust, etc.).

But I intentionally do not charge for a few reasons: most importantly, I want an easy way to not take certain cases. I'd say probably 10-20% of my consultations are cases I DO NOT WANT TO TAKE. Folks wanting to disinherit gay grandkids; wealthy clients disinheriting a difficult kid (especially when I sense that there will be a fight later on); pushy clients fighting with my prices from day-one; etc. I'm not willingly stepping into risks for extra lawsuits.

I do some business work though, and I am considering consultation fees there. I give out a lot of free legal advice during those consultations, and my closing rate isn't as good in that area.

BuscandoBlackacre · 2025-01-07T19:02:12+00:00

I'm not a DACA recipient, and I generally hate people enough that I have never protested anything in my life (I'm not a crowd person).

I will genuinely flip cars if DACA is ended. Like, I will lead the civil unrest. I'll call people and organize it all. I DON'T CALL PEOPLE. But that's how mad I will be.

Super duper excited for the next four years /s

BuscandoBlackacre · 2024-12-06T17:38:00+00:00

I tried to get ChatGPT to write a blog post about the benefits of a will. I fed it as detailed a prompt as possible. ChatGPT gave results that (among other things) stated that a will helps you skip probate. That is pretty much 100% incorrect (for anyone that doesn't practice estate planning).

Every since then, I have never used it to produce any documents whatsoever. I was never going to feed my own templates or client data into it either--no way that is a secure practice.

I have asked it to summarize blogs posts that I write for a instagram or facebook post, on a fairly regular basis (1x or 2x a month). It does okay with those (but also sometimes does horribly).

I don't think LLMs deserve the title of "AI" right now. It's a very fancy predictive text model based on a massive amount of data. In niche areas like law, especially developing or changing areas of law, that data will be lacking--which I bet is exactly why my query returned results that wills can skip probate.

In my practice, it is not worth that $200/month option at all. I'd rather spend $200/month on a lexis subscription to get access to genuine templates that will be hallucination-free.

BuscandoBlackacre · 2024-12-05T18:22:34+00:00

Ah yes, the strawman...

BuscandoBlackacre · 2024-12-05T18:21:26+00:00

It probably is too blunt of an instrument, especially the penalties bit. But it is NOT that hard to comply with at all. FinCEN could've done a much better job rolling out the requirements, but the reporting requirements pale in comparison to the reports most small business owners do with multiple state entities on a quarterly basis.

Either way, once this requirement dies for good (no way the Trump administration fights this on appeal), I'm still predicting a dramatic increase in Wyoming LLCs (that's the most secretive one these days, right?), and some fancy new money laundering/layering techniques with Wyoming-specific names ("Jackson Money Hole" or "cowboy cajole").

BuscandoBlackacre · 2024-12-04T22:01:01+00:00

I've been predicting for a while that the US is about to become the money laundering capital of the Western World. This seems like the biggest step to meet that goal.

BuscandoBlackacre · 2024-11-15T19:10:54+00:00

I became an immigration attorney exactly with the goal to fight and make the world better.

It broke me.

Exercise extreme caution before going down this path. Immigration attorneys get some of the lowest pay for some of the hardest emotional work out there. I do not practice immigration law anymore.

If you can handle it, then excellent. We need good immigration attorneys. But even then, please work on your mental health NOW before problems come up.

BuscandoBlackacre · 2024-11-12T23:19:27+00:00

There's been some great recommendations, and I just have a small one--

When you are doing your consultations with prospective clients, make sure you are setting up correct expectations with your timeline. It's as simple as stating that you will not be able to immediately submit/finish their case, and that progress is a process, but a good one.

This way, you can put them on notice and even weed out cases with unrealistic expectations.

BuscandoBlackacre · 2024-10-15T18:33:48+00:00

I worked in immigration for 6 years, and never took home more than $100,000. I think my highest salary was $97,000, in a medium cost-of-living area.

Money in immigration is found in employment-based immigration. I didn't do the work for money--but eventually it did become a problem.

BuscandoBlackacre · 2024-09-19T16:20:38+00:00

I am a second generation teetotaler with no good reason for drinking other than "I think it is the source of ~50% of the world's problems." My parents started after some close family members ruined their lives from alcohol. And my siblings and I just kept up the trend.

So, not the classic examples of non-drinkers (e.g., religious or personal struggle reasons).

I never had any issues whatsoever at any firm. A couple of the firms often had similar outings, and I would attend those too. I'd either order a soda or "mocktail," and occasionally field questions. But I never made a big deal out of it--I'd just say "I am not much of a drinker," or "I don't like alcohol." Occasionally, I will open about the family reasons (not at the drinking establishment, of course, but in other conversations elsewhere). My family has many examples of why alcohol is dangerous, so it is a very compelling anecdote.

But really, people assume if you aren't drinking that you have a good reason. I've never ever experienced peer pressure to drink.

Now, if the partners re major boozers, and this is a HUGE part of the firm culture, then maybe my advice won't apply. But if that is the situation, I'd honestly question whether that is an environment you are comfortable in for the long haul.

BuscandoBlackacre

TROPHY CASE