Milestone: 500 files!
We do not normally use this space to boast; however, I am going to make an exception today. We just opened our 500th file at Clarke Immigration Law! This is quite a milestone! Each file brings its own challenges and as we work with our clients, new issues may emerge. Part of the reason we love our work is that we get to know our clients as though they are family. Immigration is messy by nature. There are often intersections with family law, criminal law (aka crimmigration) and/or business law. We have the privilege of working with HR Managers and lawyers from foreign jurisdictions. I cannot remember a day when I have not learned something new. It may be the Statute of Limitations on a charge in Chile or the intersection between Civil Law and Criminal Law in Palestine.
500 files means that our philosophy is working. We publish our fees online and put our clients first. You can talk to anyone at Clarke Immigration Law. We strongly believe that if we serve our clients and work hard, money will come later. We want to be able to use our privileged position to help people, not burden them with debt and more problems. I remember when we started, a young couple came to the office. He was an undocumented worker in Las Vegas and she flew down there from Winnipeg for a vacation. She came back pregnant and they decided to get married. (In this case, what happened in Vegas did not stay in Vegas!) With a pregnant Canadian fiancee, he jumped in his car and drove to the border. No passport. No money. He had issues at the POE and she had the sense to call me. They paid for the consultation and the deposit. From there, we worked with CBSA and IRCC to regularize his status. They got married in Canada and they have a beautiful son. Eventually, we got paid. No problem.
Even in times of crisis, we have clients who need our services. We have been taking extraordinary steps since JAN2020 to ensure we stay safe and healthy so that we can continue to serve our clients. To a certain extent, we are on the front line. We regularly meet with clients from every corner of the world. We need to follow the political revolution in Venezuela to the protests in Hong Kong to the law reform campaigns in Senegal. In fact, we met with clients from Wuhan, China right at the beginning who described the quarantine measures in person. Thankfully, they left Wuhan before the crisis and they spent significant time in the USA before coming to Canada.
This pandemic has greatly affected Manitoba and our firm. I am extremely proud how we have been observing physical distancing rules. Prime Minister Trudeau has done an exceptional job at working from home, even as his wife suffers from COVID19 and he has to do much of the childcare and housework. At CIL, we can relate. We have staff with young kids who have to spend their days taking care of the kids while we lack daycare & school services. We have adapted.
500 files is huge! For us, this means that we have helped dozens of families, dozens of different communities and touched many lives. These 500 files include successes at Federal Court, positive decisions from the Refugee Protection Division, grants of Canadian citizenship, countless Study Permits, numerous Work Permits and too many new Permanent Residents of Canada to count. We have been invited to weddings in Cuba, attended birthday parties of our clients’ children and danced at music festivals where our clients were on stage! How awesome is that?!
As you know, we are open. We are working in this environment which has become the new normal. It is hard to say how long this is going to last. I want to stress that CBSA Officers and IRCC Officers are acutely aware how this pandemic is affecting applicants. It is also affecting Officers. At no other time is this adage more true: we are in this together.
Thank you. I mean that. We want to thank all our clients and business partners for having faith in our expertise. Each time a client signs a Retainer Agreement, that means they are putting their confidence in Clarke Immigration Law to do the work. We take this very seriously and I hope that we will continue to serve clients for many years to come.
Stay safe. Stay healthy.
