If you or someone you know has ever been involved in any type of legal case you might be all too familiar with some of the processes and procedures that sometimes come along with it, including the inevitable waiting game. Legal cases are notorious in their varying degrees of how much time they take from the opening to the closing of the case, thus making this an eternally difficult question to answer by any attorney.
Depending on the type of law your case falls under, sometimes there are mandatory, state or federally regulated, waiting periods that no attorney can bypass, and it is of the utmost importance to educate oneself should you find yourself in the midst of a legal case. The key is remembering there are two sides to each case or a petitioner and a respondent. While one side might want to have the case done and over with immediately, the other side, more often than not, might have alternate intentions. All of this prolongs a case, whether or not it is intentional.
When one side doesn’t want to settle and continues to contest all aspects of the case, it drains both sides of time and resources. A more common example includes divorce law and family law, when one party might not want to divorce and the other does, if one party wants full custody of their child(ren) and the other would prefer joint, or if one side wants to keep all assets and the other contests their decision, a case could be endlessly dragged on. Divorce lawyers are aware of this fact and that sometimes the nature of the case changes entirely throughout its course. Needless to say, should all parties agree on all aspects of the case, it can be over with and decided much more quickly and efficiently. More examples of practice areas of the law that vary in their processing times depending on the nature of the case include, but are not limited to litigation, auto dealer law, real estate law, criminal law, foreclosure defense, and probate law.
One practice area of the law that doesn’t quite comply by the rules above is immigration law. Typically, immigration applications, visas, sponsorships and more, have to go through the Unites States Citizenship and Immigration Services or more commonly known as USCIS and abide by their rules and regulations. The immigration services have their own time frames and processing times that they work with. For most immigration cases the parties involved are the applicants, the USCIS agents that will be reviewing their case, and the immigration attorney should you choose to hire legal immigration counsel for your case. Immigration lawyers are aware of the constantly evolving processing times and no one can determine how quickly a USCIS agent will get through a case file.
When it comes to processing times, immigration law is a very one-sided, where typically an applicant cannot usually expedite an application. Should you receive any correspondence from your USCIS officer regarding the progress of your case, they will typically inform you the due date a response is required by. Immigration law cases immensely vary from one another in many aspects, as well as the time it takes to fully process a case file. Additionally, USCIS has an online page which shows the expected time frame of how long processing a specific application, sponsorship, visa or more, could generally take.*
If you have any questions or need to consult a licensed attorney regarding your ongoing legal case, you can always turn to the Law Offices of Eugene Mogilevsky! Our attorneys practice a broad range of different laws such as immigration law, family law and divorce, real estate, criminal law, bankruptcy, litigation, probate, wills, trusts, intellectual property laws, contracts and more! You can contact our office online by submitting a Contact Form at Contact Us | The Law Offices of Eugene Mogilevsky (egmlegal.com) or by directly calling our office at (317) 743-7958.
Disclaimer: This blog post is for educational and informational purposes only and is not to be taken as legal advice in any capacity. Reading this blog does not constitute or establish an attorney-client relationship.
*Useful links and references:
https://egov.uscis.gov/processing-times/
“Check Case Processing Times” USCIS, https://egov.uscis.gov/processing-times/.