Put together after comparing quotes from two law firms, a solo practitioner and a nonprofit legal clinic on the same family petition. Includes the fee schedules, the retainer language and the public records that explain the gaps between them.
Four people can sit across a desk from you, quote a price for the same family petition, and hand you a receipt that looks identical. Only two of them can put their name on the case. The distinction is not a technicality that surfaces later; it decides whether anyone but you receives the request for evidence, whether anyone can call the agency when a receipt notice goes missing, and whether the person who took your money has any professional body that will hear a complaint about them. A careful reader checks this before the deposit, not after the denial.
The four categories, and which two can appear
A licensed attorney is admitted to the bar of at least one state and in good standing, which is a status you can verify yourself in a public database maintained by that state's bar. A Department of Justice accredited representative is not a lawyer, but has been approved by the government to represent people through a specific nonprofit that has itself been recognized, and that accreditation is either partial, meaning agency filings only, or full, meaning immigration court as well. A paralegal or legal assistant works under an attorney's supervision and cannot give you advice in their own right. A form-filling service, or a notario, is none of these things.
Only the first two appear on your case. Everyone else is typing.
What unauthorized practice actually looks like
It rarely announces itself. The office has a shingle, a waiting room, a printer, and someone who has genuinely filed hundreds of forms and knows the boxes cold. The line gets crossed the moment that person tells you which category to apply under, which waiver to request, whether your 2011 arrest matters, or whether you should file now or wait. That is legal advice, and giving it without a license or accreditation is unauthorized practice of law in every state, prosecuted variously by state attorneys general and state bars. The Federal Trade Commission is responsible for policing deceptive practices in consumer services, and immigration form preparers fall squarely inside that remit.
In much of Latin America a notario público is a trained lawyer with substantial authority. In the United States a notary public witnesses signatures. The word does the selling.
The G-28 is the document that settles it
Form G-28 is the notice of entry of appearance filed by an attorney or accredited representative. When it is filed and accepted, the government sends copies of notices to that person, allows them to speak for you, and holds them to a professional standard. A preparer who is not eligible signs a different box on the form itself, the one that identifies who filled it out, and that signature carries none of those consequences. So the question to ask, plainly, is whether they will file a G-28 in your case. Watch what happens next.
An attorney or accredited representative answers yes and tells you the bar number or the organization. Anyone else has to explain the answer, and the explanation is the information you came for.
Why the cheapest quote can be the expensive one
A form service charging a few hundred dollars is not necessarily cheating you. For a straightforward, well-documented petition where nothing in the history is complicated, competent typing plus the government filing fees may be all the case needs, and plenty of people get exactly that. The exposure is what happens when the case stops being simple. A request for evidence arrives, a prior overstay surfaces, an interview goes sideways, and the person you paid has no standing to respond, no obligation to keep your file, and no license anyone can pull. You then hire a lawyer at full price to fix a record that has already been made.
A recognized nonprofit sits usefully between those poles: staffed by accredited representatives who can file the G-28, funded to charge modest fees or none, and answerable to the accrediting authority. Many are oversubscribed and screen for income, so the practical question is whether they take your case type at all.
What to verify before money changes hands
Get the person's full name, in writing, and the entity they work for. Look up an attorney in the licensing state's public bar record and confirm active status and any discipline history. For an accredited representative, confirm the organization appears on the government's published list of recognized organizations and that the individual's accreditation is current, and note whether it is partial or full if there is any chance of court. For a paralegal, ask which attorney supervises the work and verify that attorney. Then read the retainer for the sentence naming who will actually sign the G-28.
That one sentence tells you more about what you are buying than the price does.