HOW IT WORKS

We work session by session. No retainer required.

Free 15-minute consultation to start. If we can help, we will tell you. If you need someone else, we will tell you that too.

First coaching session: $50 for 30 minutes by phone or Zoom.

Ongoing rates range from $100 to $250 per hour depending on the complexity of the work — a conversation is different from drafting a legal input memo or a template document. When accumulated work reaches approximately $100 in value you receive a single invoice — no line items, no tabulation. You decide if it was worth it. If it was, you pay and we continue. If it was not, you do not pay and we stop.

An attorney retainer starts at $5,000. We start at zero.

WHAT WE DO

Think of us as the informed, experienced person you wish you had known before any of this started.

We are not attorneys. We are not therapists. We are not financial advisors. We are people who have navigated the American legal and family system as highly skilled immigrant families — and learned, through hard and expensive experience, exactly where the gaps are and what to do about them.

We have attorneys we can refer you to, and we can help you communicate with any attorney you have already selected — including drafting attorney input memos and template document preparation.

ESTATE, PROBATE & FAMILY WEALTH

When a family member dies, the American legal system activates immediately — and it does not pause while you grieve.

We help you understand:

  • What probate actually is and what it means for your family's assets

  • What happens to assets in another country when someone dies here

  • What a will does and does not do — and simple strategies to protect it

  • How to find and brief the right estate attorney

  • What questions to ask before you sign anything

  • Families of mixed immigration status — including members with significant assets who are undocumented or overstayed.

THE SCHOOL SYSTEM, YOUR CHILD & YOUR FAMILY

We help you understand:

  • What school communications actually mean in legal and institutional terms

  • What mandated reporting means and when it is triggered

  • How schools can refer your child for evaluation, diagnosis, or therapeutic intervention — often without clearly explaining what is happening, what framework is being applied, or what the long term record implications are

  • How "mindfulness," "social emotional learning," and school counseling programs carry specific psychological and institutional frameworks that may conflict with your family's religious, cultural, or philosophical values — and that you have the right to understand and question

  • Why a board-certified child psychologist of your own choosing is your most important long term investment — giving you an independent expert who knows your child on your terms

  • How to get your child into advanced math and science courses with a signed self-affirmation — no transcript required.

DIVORCE, FAMILY FRACTURE & DOMESTIC LAW

We help you understand:

  • What community property law means — and the critical difference between marital and non-marital assets that surprises almost every immigrant family when a marriage ends

  • How domestic violence law is applied in the US, and how cultural miscommunication can trigger legal processes nobody intended

  • How to protect pre-marital assets — simple, legal strategies that require no prenup and no signature from a spouse

  • How to build a private, timestamped journal of your home environment — not to prove you love your children, but to create a contemporaneous record of stability and reality that cannot be rewritten later

  • Why taking your children to a board-certified child psychologist from an early age is one of the most important legal and parenting decisions you can make — and how that professional becomes your most credible expert witness if custody is ever disputed

  • How arranged marriage intersects with American family law in ways most immigrant families discover only when it is too late

  • What custody courts actually look at — presence, documentation, stability — and how to make sure your family's story is understood, not misread

  • How one spouse understanding the American legal system and the other not can fracture a family faster than the underlying conflict itself

We are familiar with and work within the framework of Illinois 604.10(b), Illinois 215, California Family Code 3111, 730, FCS, and PCCRC — among others.

WHAT H1B FAMILY DOES NOT DO

We do not represent clients in any legal proceeding. We do not file pleadings or communicate as counsel. We do not advise anyone to violate court orders. We do not replace licensed legal, mental health, or tax professionals. We do not guarantee outcomes.

What we do: we help you organize your facts, understand institutional processes, prepare the right questions, and communicate effectively with the licensed professionals who will represent you.

We bridge the gap. We do not cross it.