Lincy Gomez-Fernandes, Immigration Case Manager

Lincy collects and reviews documents before filing, tracks the application once it is with IRCC, and keeps a record of every request and response on the file. She also leads the firm's communications work.

That covers the two halves of a file that clients feel most. The first is the paperwork going in: whether the evidence is complete before it is submitted rather than after IRCC asks for it. The second is everything that happens once it has gone, when the file is out of the firm's hands and the only thing anyone can offer is an accurate account of where it sits.

Lincy has been with Rathod Law Firm for over six years, which is longer than most immigration files take from first consultation to decision. That matters more than it sounds. A case manager who has seen the same programme run through several policy changes knows which requests from IRCC are routine and which ones signal a problem, and that is the difference between a client being told to worry and being told to send three more documents.

Before joining the firm she spent about ten years in higher education, in communications and administration. Both halves of that show up in the work here. Administration in a university means handling files for people whose status in the country depends on the paperwork being right, on deadlines set by an institution rather than by the applicant. Communications means writing the explanation that people actually read.

You get a named contact and an update at each stage. Immigration files can sit with IRCC for long stretches through no fault of anyone on the file, and we would rather tell you what a wait means than guess at a date to make the news sound better.

If you want the current position on your file, ask her directly rather than reading the online status portal, which updates late and in language that does not always mean what it appears to mean.