How can I confirm that an attorney is legit? There's an attorney I can use to jump through MANY hoops to get a good passport. His work he published on his website seems legit according to the translator I used. He's publishing hundreds of documents related to clients and cases won, though he's not promising anything for certain. If he was cheap, this would be a case of too good to be true. But the things he's talking about related to the law are weird (this isn't exactly a developed country so maybe its not weird idk). I found several people (expats like me) who knows of him. Everyone thinks there's something weird here. So none of us wanted to take the risk of working with him. But I want to give it a shot. Here's what I'm thinking. If he's bribing officials or doing something shady, this might come back to bite me in the ass along with all his other clients maybe in 3 years or maybe 15. I think this sort of thing might stay in your record your whole life, making it impossible to get a citizenship, residency and even a visa from all countries. I don't know how this works exactly but this is a possibility, right? So is there a way to figure this out? Should I hire a private investigator to check up on this attorney? Should I hire another attorney to figure this out but what if they're friends? Is there another way? I might be extra cautious here but I think its worth it Edit 1. More info This is not a citizenship by investment program Nothing is 100% clear in this part of the world but the lawyer using some sort of loophole in the legal system. He's quoting the law (a few pages) in his website to explain what he does. This looks weird to me and others. He might be 100% truthful or this might be a cover. He's not promising anything but his references online (on a public forum) are saying that he's the only guy who's doing this and that he discovered the method he's using. This also looks weird to me. Based on my research, other lawyers have higher success rates compared to him. But if you go with them you jump through hoops and in that case you can do it solo without lawyer in most cases assuming you know the language Edit 2. More info Here's what might happen which is my concern. 5 years later their government sorts itself out and one day they discover that this guy bribed officials. Turns out most of the fees are for briberies. So they put him in jail. They also revoke the citizenships this guy got for his clients, or maybe they don't. Then they start cases against clients because they think clients knew what this guy was doing and they were willingly cooperating. So now his clients are also criminals or whatever this is called. Now you're fucked. This is going to come up when someone does a background check on you like Interpol. INTERPOL enables police in our 194 member countries to work together to fight international crime So that means when you apply for a new visa, residency or citizenship, this is going to come up. They're going to see that and reject you.
The short answer is that there are many different ways that different countries regulate lawyers, and thus, many different ways to go about confirming the legitimacy of a lawyer. There is also considerable variation by country and by the type of legal situation involved, regarding the effect of a good faith reliance on inaccurate advice from a lawyer. The fact that there is so much variation in this is one of the reasons that fraud and corruption in international transactions involving people who are, or who claim to be, lawyers is fairly common. My office gets dubious communications involving people who claim to be lawyers (sometimes hijacking the names, photos, and trade dress of legitimate law firms and lawyers with subtly spoofed contact information) several times a week. One option is to proactively seek out firms using recognized and well-established legal directories with multinational operations and ratings of each lawyer's competence and ethics, rather than responding to cold call style advertising or online commentary and essays. Historically, the leading publication in this niche was Martindale Hubbell, but there are now multiple competitors that use this business model. Another option is to rely on word of mouth referrals and/or corroboration from people in a good position to know, such as embassy staff from your country in the country in question, or from professional employees of large multinational businesses in the country in question. Ideally, rely on more than one source for each law firm you consider retaining.
IMHO, your questions reflect several misunderstandings of how the process works. So, with your permission, I will avoid directly answering your questions and instead focus on suggestions how to best help you plot a path forward. Your counterparty has the burden of proof. If your counterparty forged your signature on a contract, then they must prove you signed it or they can not enforce it. In order to enforce the contract, they will need to sue you civilly. Then you can introduce evidence of their forgery at that time. Inform your counterparty you did not sign the contract. Then act accordingly. If your counterparty forged your signature on an extension contract then you should inform them immediately after it has come to your attention. Advise them you have no intention of complying with a contract you never signed. And that if they try to enforce the forged agreement, you will defend yourself "vigorously." Never threaten criminal charges to advance your position in a civil case. This behavior is a crime in itself. It's called extortion. If you want to pursue criminal charges at some point then do it without relating it to the civil case. The police are not your only means of pursuing criminal charges. You can also schedule a meeting with your District Attorney, State's Attorney (whatever that position is called in your state) or your state's Attorney General. In other words, you might want to approach the government's attorney responsible for prosecuting crimes in your jurisdiction. Forget about involving the police. They have given you their position on the matter. Approach the DA or AG office instead. If the DA/AG decides to use the police, she we will make that decision then inform the police how she needs to use their services. Police are wary of being used as leverage in civil disputes. That's probably the reason for their policy decision regardless of whether it's technically justified by the law or not. Your counterparty can't "fix" anything. If they claim you signed a document you did not, they will have to produce that document with your signature on it. This will presumably be your Exhibit A evidence they forged it. Disclaimer: I am a lay person and not an attorney. This writing is no substitute for proper legal advice. If you need help with a specific legal situation please hire an attorney and do not rely on anything I have written here.
From the German lawyer association (&quot;Deutscher Anwaltverein&quot;) one can find the following (Google-translation): In the case of a purely preventive identity check, the officers are initially only allowed to determine the identity of the respondent. This means that you can ask for your name, date and place of birth, home address and nationality and have your ID shown - by the way, as a German citizen you don't have to always have your ID with you. &quot;You don't have to answer any questions beyond that,&quot; says lawyer Robert Hotstegs from the German Lawyers' Association (DAV). Of course, police officers often try to gather more information with emphatically casual questions. &quot;Well, where do we come from&quot; or: &quot;And where are we going now?&quot; Are typical examples. The police are not allowed to insist on an answer. Anyone who, as a respondent, is voluntarily too willing to provide information can harm themselves and possibly even give rise to concrete suspicions. So they are allowed to ask such things, but you don't need to answer everything. How to handle such situations, again according to the link above: “I recommend answering the survey as briefly and politely as possible. This has a de-escalating effect and helps to end the unpleasant situation as quickly as possible, ”says Attorney Hotstegs. However, you should always answer the questions about yourself. Because if the police cannot determine the identity of a person or only with great effort, they may take further measures to determine the identity. This includes taking it to the police station and, under certain circumstances, a search. Otherwise, these measures are not permitted without a specific reason.
I suspect that this person could get a green card under 8 USC 1259 or 1255a, since it seems that he entered in 1952 or so, which was long before the Reagan amnesty. These sections of the code concern those who entered the US before 1972 and 1982, respectively. You might try asking on Expatriates as there are many people there who are familiar with immigration law. A consultation with an immigration lawyer is probably advisable.
If you're in the United States, another lawyer in a firm you've hired may or may not be your attorney, but it would not be uncommon for him to have some involvement in the case, and he would be expected to treat you as a client in terms of privilege and conflicts of interest. Just the same, this is something you need to be very direct on. &quot;Are you my attorney?&quot; or &quot;Have we established an attorney-client relationship?&quot; are going to be your best options.
You would be amazed at how vanishingly few the number of cases are where a signature is disputed. Signatures are easy, quick and don't require you having inky fingers all the time. They are so useful that to throw them out to deal with infinintesimally small fractions of disputes over their veracity (bearing in mind that 99.999999999% of contracts never have a dispute that gets to a court [or at all]) is ridiculous. When it does happen, handwriting analysis is probably not going to be put into evidence anyway. Testimony like "I saw him sign it" is way more likely to be used.
There are several elements working in your friend's favor. The first is "guilty beyond a reasonable doubt." In an entrapment case, the police have recordings or documents claiming that the "girl" was underaged. If there is no such smoking gun from the (real) girl, the case (probably) would not be prosecuted in the U.S. He doesn't have to prove that she told him she was 18; "she" (or the police) has to prove that she told him she was "not." The second factor is "remoteness" in time, and distance. Two years after a U.S. state sent me a "nasty letter," I asked my lawyer if the state would ever come after me. He answered, "If they were going to do this, you would have heard further by now." The other factor, distance and cross border, (three countries: Turkey, the U.S., his home country) further militates against prosecution except for highly aggravating circumstances such as drug dealing, gambling, or sex for pay. A third factor is that your friend would not come close to qualifying as a "serious offender." This would be someone like a drug dealer, or the head of a "call girl" ring. The cops concentrate their effects on big "busts" like this that make their careers, not "small fry" like your friend. But of course they use the publicity from the big catches to scare everyone else. While there is no "guarantee" against "the worst possible consequences," the chances of them happening are similar to his getting hit by lightening, and less than his chances of being hit by a car crossing the street. No one stresses out about those chances. He shouldn't either. I am not a lawyer but I have done paralegal work in a law office.
There does seem to be a meme in the UAE of people threatening legal action for negative reviews, as a form of defamation. The police will simply tell them that this is not a crime, go hire a lawyer if you want to sue them. If you block them, perhaps they don't have any other way to contact you (seems that was the point of blocking them), which means that you cannot receive their offer &quot;If you pay us AED 1,000 we will not sue you&quot;, which could be a problem if they win their court case. Still, it is perfectly legal to ignore or block them, up to the point that you are actually served with legal papers. When they actually sue you, &quot;blocking&quot; is irrelevant, they will hire a process server to hand you the legal papers that command you to appear in court.