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Chat withState: District of Columbia
Acquired: 1999
Lawyer disciplined by state licensing authority in 2007
1707 N Street Northwest, Washington, DC, 20036
1707 N St NW, Washington, DC, 20036-2829
3 Client Reviews
Showing 1 - 2 of 2 reviews | 1 star
Posted by anonymous | September 06, 2025 | Hired Attorney | Immigration
Avoid Dodds & Associates – A Costly Mistake That Put My Family at Risk
I’m writing this review to warn others: do not trust Dodds & Associates with your immigration case. Their negligence and lack of transparency have caused serious harm to my family’s legal status in the U.S. I came to them with a job offer and asked for guidance on applying for a work visa without...
RESPONSE We have been in business for over 25 years. We don’t advertise, we don’t request people to post positive reviews (even when we have a very high approval rate) and we don’t normally respond to bad reviews like the one above. However, the review carries so many lies and inconsistencies that we have decided to convey our side of the story on this and other clients who choose to blame the attorney when the attorney had done nothing wrong. We can fully understand the enormous frustration people go through when they get a denial notice from the USCIS. We dislike the notices as well; they are not good for our business, not good for our reputation as an office but most importantly because they are incredibly disruptive. Any time our office receives a denial notice our team knows we all need to move extremely fast since the service only gives us 30 days to file a Motion to Reopen & Reconsider; to make matters worse by the time we have the opportunity to sit down with the client to discuss the next possible steps more time has elapsed and the filing of the Motion and a potential secondary application will by then have the character of urgent. We deal with the urgent matters with the corresponding urgency. That is in part what clients pay us for. If we get back to a client and tell him/her we need to file a Motion to Reopen & Reconsider in less than 30 days and also offer the option of a secondary application as a “plan B” of sort we are doing so in the best interest of the client. The reviewer seems to think we were eager to get money and that we were offering an EB2 just to get the extra revenue, when nothing could be further from the true. The service requires the payment of government fees, not us. The service requires EAD cards be renewed every so often, not us. The service issues denials for applications, not us. The service requires all documents be translated to English, not us. Sadly our office like any other law office requires to be paid for the work it performs. The client clearly resented that; but in that regard we do not operate any differently to any law office anywhere else in the world. Lastly the reviewer complains that our staff was contacting him to request payment and not answer his/her questions. Any person who has worked with an attorney before knows that if a client has a legal question, the legal question needs to be answered by their lawyer or paralegal in charge. If a staff member calls a client to remind the person of a balance due and the person asks him/her a question and the staff member tells the person to contact the attorney; that does not constitute refusing to answer a question. It is telling the person who to direct the question to. And it is done with the benefit of the client at heart. I would not like the receptionist in my doctor’s office answering my medical questions; even when she is the one contacting me to remind me of my due bills.
Posted by Kap | March 31, 2015 | Immigration
I got rejected because of this lawyer
I would have giving no star but you cannot do in Yelp. We got reject because with our greencard interview because of this lawyer. I was thinking this is a good lawyer because it was close to double cost. Other lawyers are coming to the interview but this lawyer asked $3000 extra to come, my friend...
RESPONSE We don’t know why this client claims our rates are high. Our office has always had very competitive rates (if you don’t believe this check with us directly). Additionally we don’t charge for first consultations and once a person becomes a client we rarely charge for any subsequent consultations. Our clients freely call us and email us with questions for which we never charge. We are known and respected in the Latino community for our high standards of customer service and prompt response times (we try to respond to emails within 24 hours). So when this client says he/she chose us because we were much more expensive, we have to wonder whether the statement is even true. But more importantly we feel very compelled to comment on the basis the client used to choose an attorney. Anyone who is looking for an attorney should never use how much the attorney charges as the basis for their decision. Choosing an attorney using that kind of standard shows very poor judgment. Most our clients come to us via a recommendation. We do not advertise. 90% of our clients come to us because a previous client recommended us to them. And we advise anyone who is looking for an attorney to base their decision on a previous client’s recommendation and not on how much the attorney charges. The client harshly criticizes our office because (a) their immigration forms were allegedly “blank” and (b) because we did not accompany them to their adjustment of status interview. The client even says that there was a five month delay in the expedition of their residence cards based on our not being there at the interview. These statements are simply false and they deserve to be addressed. When a set of forms is sent to the USCIS the first thing the agent in charge will do is to review them. Any attorney who has been in this business for as long as we have will tell you, if the forms were not properly filled out the service will immediately REJECT THEM. This is standard procedure. The agent sends the forms back without collecting the fees and asks the attorney to re-populate and re-submit them. Only properly filled out forms merit the issuance of a corresponding filing receipt. The service will NEVER issue a filing receipt much less an interview notice if the original forms had not even been properly filled out. To accuse an attorney for not properly filling out the forms at the time when an adjustment of status interview has already been scheduled is factually impossible. Clearly the client had a hostile USCIS agent during their interview, which is not uncommon. Unfortunately the client then decided to blame us for the delays the agent was causing. What this client fails to convey is that she eventually got her Residence Card. The delays she experienced are common in the adjustment of status process. Secondly the client complained about the fact that we did not accompany them to their interview. The reason for this is simple: we are not needed in an adjustment of status interview; in fact, the few occasions when we have attended these interviews, we have not even been allowed to talk. It’s a little bit like when a person is called into a witness stand. The person might be in court with his/her attorney, but at the moment of being crossed examined the person needs to answer the questions on his/her own and without the help of the attorney. So, yes, we do not attend adjustment of status interviews. Primarily because we don’t believe it is a fair way to make our money. And we would never have said we would charge $3000 to go there. We might have said that’s what we would have to charge if we were to go there in terms of transportation, preparation and waiting times. But that is a hypothetical statement. We would simply not attend an interview of this nature even if we were to be offered that amount. We just don’t believe charging a client to attend an interview where we will need to be silent is a good use of our time or of our clients funds.
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This lawyer was disciplined by a state licensing authority in 2007.
Informal Admonition issued in DC, 2007
updated on 05/24/2012An admonition means an attorney did something wrong but may still practice law. The Bar gives the lawyer an admonition in hopes that he or she will not repeat the behavior.
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