FAQs
Frequent Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. I heard that a lawyer licensed in one state can not work on cases in another state. I live in a college town in Iowa, can you take my case?
It depends on the nature of the cases. In our four major practice areas, immigration law and patent/trademark law are federal laws in nature and a lawyer licensed in any of the 50 states in the U.S. can represent the clients before USCIS or USPTO. In fact, we have already represented clients who live and work in more than forty states. For health law, if you are dealing with federal agencies such as the FDA, it is not a problem. Otherwise, we may only represent you in the Texas courts since currently we only have lawyers licensed in the state of Texas. Anyway, talk to us and we can probably refer your case to an experienced lawyer licensed in the proper state.
2. Lawyers are really expensive, I am not sure whether I can afford it.
At Hao Law, we understand the feeling of our clients since most of our clients are individuals or small businesses. Budget is often their first and most important concern. Our fees are competitive as compared to big firms and most similar-sized firms. We also offer flexible fee structures. For most immigration cases, the fee is flat and normally the client needs only to pay 50% of the attorney’s fees as a retainer. For patent and health law cases, the fee is based on the actual time we spend, but normally we give an estimation of the total costs during the initial consultation. In some cases, we also offer “no success, no fee” service. Remember, we are an individual/small business-friendly law firm.
3. This case is easy. I am a Ph.D and I can handle it by myself. Why bother hiring a lawyer?
Yes, you are smart and you are a quick learner. Many times things may work out even without representation of a lawyer. However, knowledge is just too much and life is just too short. Even for us as lawyers, we do not know all aspects of laws and have to seek services of other lawyers if it is outside of our expertise. Sometimes the legal matters in your case may become too complicated and are out of your control, then you will realize the importance of efficient and quality legal service. Moreover, why not use your limited time to do something you are more familiar with and get more successes. For example, write a grant or be better prepared for the USMLE exam. It would be a smart choice to leave the work to the person who has more experience and can handle it more efficiently.
4. I trust more a lawyer I can meet in person and explain my cases in more detail. Houston is too far away!
Our firm is located in Houston, the fourth-largest city in the U.S. with the largest medical center in the world. So far clients from the Texas Medical Center form our largest client base. Our local clients can take advantage of this and meet us in person to discuss their cases. However, a face-to-face meeting is not necessary for many instances. As a matter of fact, we have many clients we have never met in person, they made the hiring decision based on our reputation and referrals from our former clients. In the information era, the face-to-face meeting of clients with their attorneys is not essential anymore. The most important thing is to get the work done.
5. We prefer a lawyer who is specialized in one area of law, your firm seems to provide a lot of services, is not that too many?
We are a boutique firm providing tailored services to professionals and entrepreneurs who would like to face the challenges in another country (either in the U.S. or in China). We know the needs of our clients and have developed enough expertise in their most concerning legal matters on the road to success. We attempt to provide a one-stop service to our clients to establish a long-term attorney-client relationship. Currently, our firm has four attorneys who possess different sets of skills and expertise in specific areas of law. However, we are not experts in every case involving immigration law, health law, or IP law issues. For example, when a potential client would like to apply for a green card through asylum or to protect his copyrights in the U.S., we normally refer them to more experienced lawyers in these areas. We only accept those cases that we have the ability to handle.
