Your client stays yours. I handle the federal courtroom.
If a client’s case is stuck at USCIS and federal court is the logical next step, you should not have to choose between learning district-court practice overnight and handing your client to a competitor. This page describes the standing arrangement I offer referring and co-counseling attorneys: a limited-scope federal engagement, a flat fee quoted before anyone signs, filing measured in days, and you copied on every communication I send your client.
The engagement I take is the federal delay action — a complaint under 28 U.S.C. § 1361 and 5 U.S.C. §§ 555(b) and 706(1), litigated through resolution in the district court — and nothing beyond it. The scope is fixed in a written limited-scope agreement signed by the client. Everything else remains where it belongs: the underlying application, the administrative record, the G-28, and above all the client relationship are yours before I appear, while I am in the case, and after the federal action ends.
I will say the quiet part plainly, because it is the first thing every referring attorney privately wants to know: I do not solicit referred clients. Not for the underlying case, not for the next case, not for the relative’s case. When the federal action concludes, my engagement terminates by its own terms and the client goes back to having one lawyer — you. A practice built on co-counsel referrals survives only if that promise is kept every single time; keeping it is not generosity, it is the business model.
The lawsuit itself is directed at the agency’s inaction, never at the work in the file. Its premise is that the application you prepared is ready to be decided. Your client may still worry that bringing in a second lawyer creates friction — that concern is answered, from the client’s side of the table, on a companion page: Can I Hire a Separate Attorney for My Mandamus Case?
Venue in a delay case ordinarily lies where the plaintiff resides. The map below shows the district courts where I am admitted — the District of Colorado, the District of Connecticut, the District of Columbia, the District of New Jersey, all four districts of New York, the Eastern District of Wisconsin, and the Southern District of Texas — together with Florida, where all three districts are covered through a standing co-counsel arrangement with Florida counsel. For clients residing elsewhere, I can associate local counsel or appear pro hac vice alongside you where the district’s rules allow it — in a co-counsel posture, your appearance in the case often makes that straightforward.
1. Conflict check and file summary. Send me the receipt notice, any RFEs and proof of the responses, and the current posted processing time. No originals, no client file — copies of the operative documents are enough.
2. Candid assessment. I tell you — and, if you wish, the client on a joint call — whether the delay supports a claim under the TRAC factors, and in which district venue lies. If the case is not ready, I say so; a weak complaint filed early costs the client credibility that a strong complaint six months later would have had.
3. Engagement. The client signs a limited-scope agreement for the federal action at a flat fee. Nothing in it touches your engagement, and I do not divide fees; each lawyer is paid separately for separate work, which keeps everyone comfortably inside the fee rules of every state involved.
4. Filing and litigation. With a complete file, drafting is typically a matter of days. You are copied on every client email from the first draft to the closing letter, and you see the complaint before it is filed. Your level of involvement is your choice: pure referral, active co-counsel, or anything between.
5. Conclusion. The agency decides — as it usually does once the case is in front of a judge — or the court orders it to. Either way, the decision issues in your administrative case, my engagement ends, and the client is yours alone again.