Immigration Lawyer vs Immigration Consultant

Both immigration lawyers and immigration consultants can act as your representative when you apply to visit, study, work, or immigrate to Canada.

An immigration lawyer / immigration attorney is a person with a law degree, who has passed the bar exams, and who is licensed to practice law. Lawyers are regulated by the Law Society in their province (or their state, in the US). A lawyer can help prepare the paperwork for your immigration application, can advise you on the law and the immigration process, and can represent you at court if your matter is complex (such as overcoming a misrepresentation, or criminal or other ineligibility).

An immigration consultant is not a lawyer and so, cannot represent you in court. However, a consultant can still help prepare the paperwork for your application and advise you on the immigration process. In Canada, immigration consultants are licensed and regulated by the Immigration Consultants of Canada Regulatory Council.

Why You May Need the Help of an Immigration Lawyer or an Immigration Consultant:

You may need or want to hire an immigration lawyer or an immigration consultant to be your representative because:

• Laws and procedures are ever-changing. The government processes immigration applications and so, there are often bureaucratic changes too. The categories for applying may change, and even the office where you submit an application can change from year to year. Instead of having to keep up with the these changes, you could hire an immigration representative (either an immigration lawyer or immigration consultant) whose main job is to keep up with these changes. This way, you can spend your time at work and with your family, rather than experiencing undue stress and delays.
• Some immigration representatives offer a money-back guarantee, meaning if your immigration application is not approved, they won’t charge you. A money-back guarantee is more common among immigration consultants, who tend to represent people with more straightforward applications (the ones that can be processed by the government office without needing any legal issues to be determined by a court). It is less common for an immigration lawyer to offer a money-back guarantee, because they tend to take cases which are more complex and require legal issues to be determined by a court. These are much more time and labour-intensive files and they cannot guarantee a court will decide in your favour.
• Applying to immigrate is a very important process in your life and can affect you and your family indefinitely. It is a process that many people feel safer leaving to the professionals.
• Simple mistakes on your immigration application can mean long delays in the processing of your papers. Immigration representatives,  whether lawyers or consultants, because of their experience with a lot of applications, can see mistakes on your application that you might overlook. Mistakes include incorrectly filling out the forms or even applying under the wrong category or class.

Tips on Hiring Immigration Representatives:

1. Make sure the immigration representative is a members in good standing of their provincial or territorial Law Society (if they are an immigration lawyer), the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants (if they are an immigration consultant), or the Chambre des notaires du Québec (if they are a notary or lawyer in Quebec).
   • Visit the following website (then scroll down when you get to the page) to find out if the immigration representative or immigration lawyer is authorized: https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigration-citizenship-representative/choose/authorized.html
2. Ask people who have gone through the process. See if they used an immigration representative, and get some feedback. Would they recommend the representative they used? Why or why not?
3. Don’t be afraid to ask questions.
   • Find out how long the immigration representative has been in business and what their success rate is.
   • Find out if they’ve ever been disciplined by their regulatory body.
   • Ask them what their services and their corresponding fees are.
4. Check websites that give reviews on immigration representatives including immigration lawyers and immigration consultants. If there are a number of negative reviews, you may want to consider a different immigration representative.

Immigration Attorney vs Immigration Consultant Costs

Hiring an immigration attorney is usually more expensive than an immigration consultant. Immigration consultants  tend to represent people with more straightforward applications, which require less legal expertise, and which take less time and less labour for them to complete. These are the applications that can be processed by the government office without needing any legal issues to be determined by a court, such as a straightforward spousal sponsorship. As such, immigration consultants can often charge less.

In contrast, immigration attorneys tend to take cases which are more complex, which require more in-depth legal analysis or argument, and which may require legal issues to be determined by a court. These are much more time and labour-intensive files and they cannot guarantee a court will decide in your favour.

That said, an immigration consultant tends to focus their business solely in immigration consulting. In contrast, some lawyers practice in several areas of law (immigration, criminal, and family law, for example) and immigration may only comprise 30% or 50% of their practice. It’s possible that an immigration consultant could have more experience with your particular matter. If this is a concern, but you want to hire a lawyer because your matter is complex, consider going to a law firm that focuses solely in immigration.