As an international student, will you need an immigration lawyer to help you finish your immigration application to Canada? The answer is “no,” but be sure that you use a good ICCRC immigration consultant to help you complete your application. Doing so will decrease your chances of making an error, especially if yours is a complicated case. For example, people avoid errors by using a tax accountant to file their annual income tax returns in this country.

An immigration lawyer who has only been exposed to single-digit immigration projects and does not have a deep knowledge of immigration laws and regulations can be a layman with legal qualifications. In contrast, an ICCRC consultant, who has probably taken years to study immigration issues, has a specialized knowledge and has made a rigorous examination of immigration laws. Nevertheless, the experience of an ICCRC consultant in handling cases may even be far less than that of a copywriter who has been working in the publication industry for many years.

Therefore, only from the perspective of “legal qualifications”, there is still no way to judge the caliber of either immigration lawyers or ICCRC consultants. “Experienced” and “responsible” are the criteria you should apply to anybody offering advice about immigration.

“Experience in immigration” refers to how many similar cases the licensed consultant or lawyer has handled. Although immigration law is only one branch of the many local, provincial, and federal laws in Canada, there are also quite a few branches in immigration law, and each branch requires a detailed knowledge. No individual or company can claim to be proficient in every branch of immigration law. The experience of handling similar cases is sometimes far more important than the general understanding of immigration law, because a judicial interpretation can sometimes affect thousands of people. The visa officer’s interpretation of a certain law is sometimes different from how the law should be interpreted, but the visa officer has decided the initial direction of the case. In order to insist that “this law should be interpreted that way,” a visa officer may be forced to appeal. Courts are not the pathway that most applicants should take.

Responsibility is another very important factor. For immigration consultants, signing one more client is accepting just one more case, but for the client, it is an application that affects a lifetime. A good immigration consultant treats the client as his own family member, patiently designs a meticulous plan, speaks candidly about possible risks, and is fully prepared for the legal points that may affect the case.