One person's working through of how immigration legal help is priced, who is licensed to give it, and what a fee agreement covers once you read past the first page.
Two categories of people can lawfully represent you before U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the immigration courts: attorneys in good standing with the bar of any state, and representatives accredited by the Executive Office for Immigration Review who work for a recognized nonprofit organization. That is the whole list. Everyone else, whatever their sign says, is filling out forms as a typist at best, and the distinction matters most at exactly the moment you are least equipped to check it, when you are sitting in an unfamiliar office being told the filing deadline is close.
Checking a state bar record takes about five minutes
Every state bar publishes a searchable member directory, and the useful ones show more than a name. You are looking for four things: that the person is listed at all, that the status reads active rather than suspended, resigned, or inactive, the admission date, and any public discipline history. Search by last name and confirm the middle initial, because common names produce several matches and the wrong one tells you nothing. If the office gives you a firm name but not the individual attorney's name, that itself is the answer to a question you should be asking. Ask who will actually sign the Form G-28.
Why the state on the license is not the state you live in
Immigration law is federal, so an attorney admitted in Illinois can represent you in a case filed from Georgia, appear before an immigration court in Texas, and correspond with a service center in Nebraska. This surprises people who expect legal help to be geographically bounded the way a real estate closing or a divorce is. It also means you cannot rule someone out because their bar admission is somewhere else, and you cannot rule them in because their office is around the corner. What you can do is verify the admission wherever it is, then confirm the attorney has not been suspended or expelled from practice before the immigration agencies, which is tracked separately and published as a list of disciplined practitioners.
The EOIR list is the other half of the check
Nonprofit organizations can apply to EOIR for recognition, and individuals working for those organizations can apply for accreditation, either partial, which covers work before the immigration benefits agency, or full, which adds appearances in immigration court. The roster of recognized organizations and accredited representatives is public and searchable, and it is organized by organization and by state. A person who tells you they are accredited should appear on it by name, tied to a specific organization, with an accreditation that has not expired. Accreditation is renewed on a cycle, so a lapsed entry is worth a direct question rather than an assumption. Recognized organizations are also limited in what they can charge, which is part of why the roster is worth searching first if cost is the constraint.
What an unlicensed preparer actually does to a case
The harm is rarely a single dramatic act. It is a Form I-589 filed to buy a work permit when the applicant had no asylum claim, which triggers a referral to immigration court and, if a judge finds the application frivolous, a permanent bar on other benefits. It is a marriage petition filed without disclosing a prior removal order. It is an adjustment application submitted for someone who entered without inspection and was never eligible, generating a denial, a Notice to Appear, and a record that follows the file forever. None of that is undone by firing the preparer, and the person who signed the forms is you.
In much of Latin America a notario público is a credentialed attorney, which is why the title travels badly and why the Federal Trade Commission, which oversees deceptive commercial practices, treats immigration services fraud as a consumer protection matter. A careful reader checks the same three things every time: a name, a status, and a signature line. Ask who is representing you, look that person up in a bar directory or the EOIR roster, and confirm they will sign the G-28 as your representative. Someone who declines to be named on the government form is telling you what they are.
Keep copies of everything you hand over and everything filed on your behalf, including the receipt notices, because a case that was handled properly leaves a clean paper trail and a case that was not can usually be reconstructed from one.