The person sitting across the desk from you is either licensed to practice law in at least one state, accredited by the federal government to represent people before the immigration agencies, or neither. There is no fourth category, and the difference is not a matter of degree. Verifying which one applies takes about an hour of unglamorous clicking, and it costs nothing. Compare that against the cost of discovering, eighteen months into a family petition, that the filings were prepared by someone with no authority to sign a Form G-28 and no license to lose.
Start with the state bar, and read past the green checkmark
Every state bar publishes a searchable directory of admitted attorneys. Search by last name, then confirm the bar number, the admission date, and the current status, because "active" and "inactive" and "suspended" and "resigned with charges pending" all display in the same small typeface. An attorney licensed in New Jersey may lawfully handle an immigration case for a client in Texas, since immigration is federal practice, so an out-of-state license is not by itself a problem. An expired one is. Check the state the attorney actually names on the engagement letter, not the state where the office happens to sit.
The listing usually shows a business address and a public discipline history. Compare the address on the bar record against the address on the office door and the address on the website. Three different addresses is not proof of anything, though it is worth a question. If the bar record shows an attorney of record who never appears in your meetings, and a non-attorney does all the talking, you are looking at an arrangement where the license is being rented out, and the person handling your file is not the person the license belongs to.
The EOIR list is the other legitimate door
The Executive Office for Immigration Review, inside the Department of Justice, maintains a public roster of recognized organizations and accredited representatives. These are nonprofits, often church-affiliated or community-based, whose staff have been reviewed and authorized to represent people before USCIS, and in some cases before the immigration courts as well. Accreditation comes in two levels, partial and full, and the roster says which. A partially accredited representative can handle agency filings but not court appearances, which matters enormously if your case is one bad notice away from a hearing.
Search the roster by organization name and by the representative's name, then confirm the accreditation has not lapsed. Recognition is granted to the organization and accreditation to the individual, so both entries need to be current. A recognized organization charging modest fees is a legitimate and often excellent option, particularly for straightforward adjustment and naturalization work, and the roster is the only place to confirm that status. Anyone claiming accreditation who does not appear on it is claiming something that does not exist.
Discipline records are public, and worth twenty minutes
Most state bars publish disciplinary decisions and post them alongside the attorney's directory entry. EOIR separately maintains a list of practitioners who have been suspended or expelled from practice before the immigration courts and agencies, which is not the same as being disbarred by a state, and a person can appear on one list and not the other. Search both. A single old fee dispute resolved a decade ago reads differently from a pattern of client abandonment or failure to communicate, and the published decisions usually describe the conduct in enough detail for you to tell which you are reading.
What a notary can do, and what a cash-only office tells you
A notary public in the United States witnesses signatures. That is the whole authority. In much of Latin America a notario público is a trained attorney, and the mistranslation has been the engine of immigration fraud for decades, which is why the Federal Trade Commission, the federal agency responsible for policing deceptive consumer practices, treats notario advertising as a consumer protection matter. An immigration consultant or form preparer may type what you dictate. They may not choose which form you file, advise you on eligibility, sign a G-28, or appear for you anywhere.
Then the office itself. Cash only, no written fee agreement, no receipt, no copies of what was filed, promises about outcomes, pressure to sign today, and the original of your passport or birth certificate kept in a drawer. Any one of these deserves a question. Two together are enough to leave, and a licensed attorney or accredited representative will give you a signed agreement, a receipt, and your own copy of every page submitted on your behalf.
Do the checking before the retainer, not after the first missed deadline. The information is public, the searches are free, and the afternoon you spend on them is the cheapest due diligence in the entire case.