Case Blueprint
Before you hire anyone, find out what your record actually shows.
The Case Blueprint is a written evaluation of your record and your options. You get the honest read, including a not yet if that is the answer, and a strategy document that is yours to keep whether or not you hire me.
In writing
Not an hour you have to remember.
Yours to keep
Take it to another attorney if you want.
Credited if you retain me
One time, and it does not expire.
Flat fee
$500
Written by the attorney who would handle the case.
Where it sits
Most of what you can buy before you hire a lawyer is a conversation.
Here is the whole ladder, honestly, including the steps I do not offer. Read down it and you will see the gap this sits in.
Forums, and asking an AI
- Roughly
- Free
- What you get
- The categories, the criteria, and other people's stories. Genuinely useful, and you should read them.
- What it cannot do
- Nobody has read your file, and nobody is accountable for the answer.
A free case review
- Roughly
- Free
- What you get
- A conversation about whether a firm wants to take the case on. That is a fair trade and there is nothing wrong with it.
- What it cannot do
- Leave you holding anything. There is no document at the end of it.
A paid consultation
- Roughly
- $150
- What you get
- A real legal read, out loud, with me. Often that conversation is the whole answer.
- What it cannot do
- Outlast the call. What you keep is what you wrote down.
The Case Blueprint
- Roughly
- $500
- What you get
- A written evaluation of your record and your options, from the attorney who would file it, and a session where we read it together.
- What it cannot do
- Be a filing, or representation in a case. It is a limited scope evaluation and it says so in writing.
A review of a petition you already built
- Roughly
- Four figures, commonly
- What you get
- A written second opinion on a package that already exists.
- What it cannot do
- Help you before there is a petition, which is when most people actually need the answer.
Retaining a lawyer
- Roughly
- The flat fee for your case type
- What you get
- Somebody owns the outcome and builds the whole filing.
- What it cannot do
- Un-commit you. You agree to it before anyone has written down whether you should.
Everything above the Blueprint is a conversation. Everything below it assumes you have already decided.
What the work is
Three things I will tell you that nobody has yet.
Which part of your record is the problem
Not that your profile is not strong enough. Which part. A conclusion you cannot act on is not an answer, it is a door closing.
Which category I would actually file, and which I would not
Including the one you came in asking about, and the reason, whichever way that goes.
What would have to change for a no to become a yes
Named specifically, so you can go and build it. This is the version that is still worth reading long after the consultation.
The document
What you get
A written evaluation of your record, in the same plain language I would use if we were sitting across a table.
01
The path I would recommend, and the ones I would rule out
Category by category, with the reason each one is in or out. The excluded list is usually the more useful half.
02
Where your record is strong
The evidence you already have, matched to the standard it has to meet, so you can see what is carrying weight and what is just sitting in the file.
03
Where it is weak, and what closes the gap
Named specifically. A gap you can name is a gap you can work on. A vague worry is not.
04
The framing
Two people with the same resume can read very differently on paper. A lot of the work is deciding what your record is actually a record of, and telling it in the order an officer reads it.
05
The recommendation letters
Who should write for you, what each letter has to do, and why the most impressive name is often not the most useful one.
06
The calendar
What has to happen in what order, and which parts run on a government clock rather than on ours.
And then we read it together.
Then we go through it together, so you can ask the questions the document raises while I am still in front of you.
“I am not selling you a document. If I could write it before we talked, it would not be worth paying for.”
Fit
Who this is for, and who it is not.
If your case is straightforward, you do not need this, and I will tell you so in the consultation.
Who this is for
You were told your profile is not strong enough
A consultation somewhere else ended in a no, and you left without learning which part of the record was the problem or whether it could be fixed.
You were told it looks fine, by someone who never looked
A short call, a confident yes, and a quote. Nobody asked to see your publications, your letters, or your employment history.
You are choosing between two categories
O-1A and EB-1A are both built on extraordinary ability, though EB-1A is adjudicated more strictly. EB-2 NIW, the national interest waiver, is judged on a different question entirely: whether your work benefits the country enough that the job offer requirement should be waived. Which one fits depends on what your record shows, not on which one sounds better.
You are not ready to file, and you know it
You want to know what to build over the next stretch of your career so the petition is strong when you do file, instead of guessing and hoping.
Who this is not for
Your path is already clear and the open questions are cost and timing. Those get answered in the consultation.
Your employer is sponsoring you and everyone agrees on the category. The work there is the filing, not the diagnosis.
You want a number on your odds. I will not put one on your odds, in a Blueprint or anywhere else, and neither should anyone who has not read your record.
Your options
Where the Blueprint sits
Three steps, in order. Each one costs more than the step above it and answers more than the step above it. Plenty of people never reach the third.
Cost
The fee, and the credit
The Case Blueprint is a $500 written evaluation. You get an honest read on your profile and a strategy document that is yours to keep, whether or not you hire me.
If you later retain the firm for a full matter, the Case Blueprint fee is credited toward that matter. The credit applies one time and it does not expire. This is the full fee for the Case Blueprint. It is a limited-scope written evaluation, not representation in a case, and an attorney-client relationship for the evaluation begins only when the limited-scope agreement is signed and the invoice is paid.
The process
How you get one
-
The conversation
We talk first. Start with the free intake if you would rather have my team hear the situation and tell you whether a consultation is worth booking, or book the paid consultation with me if you already know you want a legal read. Often that conversation is the whole answer.
-
The scope, in writing
If a Blueprint is the right next step, I send you a limited-scope engagement letter and the invoice together, from your client portal. You read both before you agree to either.
-
Your record, and what I find in it
Once it is signed and paid, you send me the record and I do the work, and you get it back in a session we walk through together.
If you already know what you want to ask
Then the paid consultation is your door, and you can take it straight from here. The session starts at your question instead of at the beginning.
Booking asks you to write down what you want to ask about, and that question is required. It is what lets me read your record before we sit down, which is the part you are paying for.
Booking does not create an attorney-client relationship.
Before you decide
The questions people ask first.
Why would I pay when other firms advertise a free evaluation?
Because they are different things, and both are honestly priced. A free evaluation is a conversation about whether a firm wants your case, paid for by the clients who sign, which means the incentive runs toward yes. Nobody writes you a document at the end of it, and nobody is being paid to tell you no.
You are not paying me for information. You are paying for an attorney to read your actual record and write down what is in it, including the parts that are not working. If that is not worth it to you, take the free one. I mean that.
What if I pay and the answer is not yet?
Then you got the thing you paid for. A not yet is a finding, not a failure, and it comes with what would have to change for the answer to become yes.
You will usually know before you pay. If the consultation makes it clear that the answer is no and that no amount of writing changes it, I say so there and no Blueprint gets written. The expensive outcome is not being told no. It is being told yes by somebody who never looked.
How is this not just a sales document for your own services?
Three structural reasons rather than three promises. It is already paid for, so I am not writing it to win your business. The document is yours and you can hand it to another attorney, which is a bad idea for me if it is a sales document and a fine idea if it is honest work. And I turn people away at the consultation, before any of it is written.
Can I not work this out from an AI, or from a forum?
You can get the categories and the criteria from both, and you should. What neither can do is look at your citations, your two letters from people who actually supervised you, and the three years you spent somewhere nobody has heard of, and tell you which of those an officer reads as evidence and which reads as filler. That judgment is the work you are paying for.
You are one attorney. Why not a firm with a hundred of them?
At a larger firm the person who reads your record, the person you met, and the person who writes the petition are often three different people. That is not a scandal, it is how leverage works, and for some matters it is the right structure. Here they are the same person. Two paralegals support the filing work, and anything that takes legal judgment comes back to me.
Is this on top of the full fee, or part of it?
Part of it, if you go forward. If you later retain the firm for a full matter, the Case Blueprint fee is credited toward that matter. The credit applies one time and it does not expire. If you do not go forward, you keep the document and we are square.
What happens to my documents?
They go into your client portal, not into an email thread. The engagement letter, the invoice, the Blueprint itself and the session all sit in one place you can log back into. Please do not send confidential details before there is a signed engagement agreement.
Can we do this in Korean?
Yes. The consultation, the session and the document are all in Korean if you want them to be, with me directly rather than through an interpreter. I was an international student myself, which is not a credential, but it does mean I have read these forms from the other side of the desk.
The portal
Where all of this lives
The engagement letter, the invoice, the Blueprint itself, and the session all sit in your client portal, in one place you can log back into.
Next step
Start with the conversation.
A consultation is where we find out whether a Blueprint is the right first step for you. Sometimes it is not, and I will say so.
Booking does not create an attorney-client relationship.