TUKKI’S CHOICE OF BUSINESS MODELS TO IMPROVE THE US IMMIGRATION EXPERIENCE.

Should we replace immigration lawyers or catalyze their knowledge?

Contributor

Ramiro Roballos

Reading time

3 mins read

Date published

Aug 9, 2024

I'm still convinced that execution is more important than strategy. However, some strategic decisions can make or break your business.

One key decision is choosing the industry you want to enter. Many years ago at Kellogg, I read a statistic that stuck with me: 50% of a business's success depends on the industry you choose.

The next crucial decision is your business plan and positioning. Even though our team at Tukki chose to work in immigration, we could have gone in different directions, like selling software to lawyers or automating the immigration process to replace lawyers. Each option would lead to very different business models, clients, company types, required skills, and economic implications.

I’m asked a lot why we chose to work with lawyers instead of running other business model options. I’ll answer that in this article.

Why not sell to lawyers?

To make a significant impact in the industry, we need to address the biggest pain points, which do not lie with the lawyers, but with the immigrants.

After interviewing dozens of lawyers and immigrants, it became clear that immigrants face the most challenges: inefficient processes, lack of visibility, slow responses, stress, and uncertainty. While lawyers could benefit from better technology, we believed we could make a bigger impact by working directly with immigrants.

Additionally, we think that the pain points that immigrants currently experienced can't be solved by software alone. It requires a combination of software and operations. Great lawyers are part of the operations piece, but bringing in business best practices from other industries makes a huge difference for the immigration experience and ease of process for lawyers.

Why not replace lawyers?

Involving immigration lawyers from the start is essential to providing the best service to immigrants — we’ve learned this from personal experience. Immigration law is complex and rarely clear-cut. You need the expertise and judgment of an experienced lawyer. While many steps in the process can be automated, there are moments where a lawyer's input is crucial, such as:

  • The initial strategy meeting to shape the case
  • To address legal questions that arise during the process
  • The final review and legal arguments

Additionally, obtaining a visa or a green card is a life-changing event; immigrants want a team they can rely on, someone to chat with and answer their questions. Our vision of the best immigration experience is the opposite of a self-service, impersonal experience with an AI. We believe in providing a warm, supportive environment with real human interaction.

Why not simply be lawyers?

People often ask, "If you still have lawyers on your team, why should I work with Tukki instead of going directly to a lawyer?"

We combine the best of both worlds: expert knowledge from lawyers and a highly efficient, customer-focused process enabled by our technology.

Neither can deliver the best experience to immigrants alone; you need both.

I admit, this approach didn't come without its challenges! It’s far more complicated to acquire customers, service them, get great lawyers, manage operations end-to-end, and build a great product than just focus on one section of the journey. Scaling is also much easier when you're building a B2B SaaS solution compared to managing operations. That's why, since day one, Tukki has obsessively focused on streamlining operations with technology to become exponentially more efficient and scalable than the status quo.

If you want to truly reinvent an industry, you need to go all in, and that's what we signed up for.

To tap into that expert knowledge from lawyers and efficient, customer-focused process enabled by our technology, start with our Visa Match tool, and find out what your best options for US immigration are.

WE CAN HELP

Need more clarity?

Find quick answers to frequent visa questions from our legal experts

Is there a single H-1B minimum salary that applies to every job?

No. The H-1B minimum salary is the "required wage," which is the higher of your company's actual wage for the role or the prevailing wage for that occupation and location. Because the prevailing wage varies by job, wage level, and metro area, the floor is different for almost every hire.

A distributed role can carry a higher floor than the same job in a single location.

Who can request to see the public access file?

Anyone. The file is public by design, and it must be available for examination within one working day of the LCA being filed. That includes DOL investigators, competing employers, unions, current or former employees, and members of the general public with no connection to your company.

There is no requirement that a requester explain why they want it.

Is PERM a visa or a work permit?

No. PERM is not a visa, nor does it provide work authorization or permission to stay in the U.S. It is only the labor certification needed before an employer can file the I-140 immigrant petition.

Where can I check the latest list of restricted countries?

For Groups 1 and 2, use the State Department's Suspension of Visa Issuance under Proclamation 10998 page. For Group 3, use the Immigrant Visa Processing Updates for Nationalities at High Risk of Public Benefits Usage page. Both are on travel.state.gov.

The country-specific page for your nationality is also worth checking before filing.

How does filing the I-140 affect my place in the green card line?

Filing Form I-140 establishes your priority date, which is your spot in the queue for permanent residence. Because every country currently faces an EB-2 backlog, an earlier priority date means more time accruing while you wait, which is a core reason candidates from India and China often file as soon as they have a valid basis.

Check the current Visa Bulletin for cut-off dates.

Other blogs for every step of your visa journey

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