DO NOT WORK WITH HIM. Can't believe he made it to HN!!
He somehow became a thing but I can't stress out enough how much money he had cost me while providing either no service -even declined to work on my first case- or really shitty service, where i ended up writing all docs myself.
He does not think out of the box at all or provides any value bigger than digging into Google. He didn't have any plan B or even replied to my emails asking what we should try next after we had lost. The only thing he ever did for me was sending the invoice. Everything else was taken care of by his assistant, sending information and documents i had drafted to the government, trying things that i had researched myself.
Please feel free to reach out to me for a curated list of good immigration lawyers. I would have taken my return flight back to Germany more than a year ago if i listened to his advice, which has been "i don't see any options here" when there WAS an option for another year.
more details:
Yes this is my first post so i understand that questions about my trustworthiness may arise but i didn't wanna make this a reason to not share my experience. When i first reached out to him, i asked him to help me transferring my J-1 to another company since the company i worked for treated immigrants as second-class labour (happens more often than you think) with working on the weekends, having to come in way earlier than everyone else, cameras, furious texts, getting yelled at, making cleaning and ordering food primary tasks, etc etc- the quintessence here is that after a few months i just couldn't do it anymore, was burnt out, cried every night and felt taken advantage of big times. I quit and was seeking help since I didn't wanna give up on my dream of working in Silicon Valley. I wanted a real chance with a new company. I got referred to Peter Roberts as the "James Bond of Immigration". I reached out. All i got from him was "most certainly not" on all my questions like "is there any way to transfer my current j1?" "can i apply for a new j1?" - that was it. Just no. No chat, no phone call, no digging more into the situation trying to find something we can work with. He just left me as hopeless as i was before. Fast forward a month later (since i just refused to give up) i successfully worked on a solution with the visa agency myself. I transferred to a new company. Then, when we approached the end of my J1, the new sponsoring company and i decided to apply for H1B. Again, i reached out to Peter Roberts because i thought, well- my previous case was a tough one and he got more and more recognition- let's give it another try. This time, we only exchanged a few emails upfront(pricing), he named a total and agreed to a split payment. Again no further interest in getting to know me, to fully understand the situation in order to make sure the application will be the best it can be, something i simply expect when you deal with people's destinies while getting paid for it. From there, all communication was with his assistant?)/paralegal/? (not sure what her position was but she worked as his support.), named M. (don’t wanna tell her full name since she was really sweet). All narratives, questionnaires, job descriptions, qualifications etc etc we had to draft ourselves (which clearly isn't optimal when you deal with officers who read things differently). During the whole process of filing there also have been no proactive communication, no updates, nothing. I had to check in to see if things were being sent on time. After we filed and the lottery date had passed, after i while i checked in (still only his support M. replying) only to hear that it probably didn’t work out and they will send me back all documents (which i haven’t received yet either). The only thing i received a few weeks later (this time from Peter Robert) was the rest of the invoice, which ended up being higher than the total we agreed on upfront. Again, no demonstration of further possibilities or trying to help me, trying to find something we can work on, some sort of strategy to keep me here until we can apply again. Instead, again he left me with my dream shattered into pieces. Not willing to give up once more, i started a bigger outreach, e-mailing and cold calling all immigration lawyers i’ve heard of or got referred to, sharing my story. I ended up finding a wonderful lawyer who’s taking care of all things immigration for me now. Her work is thorough, she thinks out of the box, she took time to getting to know me, she updates me, her pricing is as expected. This is what being a good immigration lawyer means to me.
For those of you wondering, yes there are really terrific immigration lawyers in the Bay Area that work their butt off, care genuinely, and charge a fair price.
and for those who are wondering - to be more specific on his expected behavior from my perspective (besides just generally being more proactive, thorough and genuinely showing interested in my story ) - case 1) "oh that's a tough one but let me research other cases where a transfer had been granted and let's see if there is anything we can do - instead he said i'd probably have to leave within 24hrs and if i don't then he'd be open to talk about if running out of status might me an option (WTF?!) case 2) "sorry it didn't work out - wanna hop on a call and see if we can go the B2 > H1b route? might E2 be an option? Or can i learn more about you and see if you're qualified for an O1? instead of just sending me the invoice with a higher rate. Why did i have to come up with all that myself? that's why i am so disappointed.
Edit: I was informed this was an abuse of HN. Peter can't defend himself in this scenario because of US confidentiality laws between lawyers and clientele.
Many people have had good or stellar experiences with Peter Roberts.
Between your comments and others in this subthread, this is beginning to look uncomfortably like an organized campaign. That is not a legit use of the thread.
Obviously there's no direct way for anyone who doesn't know the facts of an anonymous story to respond to it. It would be difficult even for Peter to respond specifically; confidentiality issues don't just disappear when someone posts a comment. But it doesn't feel right to leave this unanswered, either, so let me add my own simple anecdote: working with Peter, who helped me get a visa, was hands-down the best experience I've ever had with a lawyer. And you can see the similar things that other HN users had to say when we announced the AMA: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10699898.
There's a reason why YC uses Peter to help every international startup they fund. If he didn't deliver the goods, that wouldn't happen.
I don't mean that to denigrate your friend's experience—it's impossible to evaluate.
