Sweta Jadav, Assistant Manager

Retainers and client agreements, and the signing that has to be finished before work begins. After a consultation she is the person a client hears from, on what was decided, what is needed, and what happens next.

That gap is where files are most often lost. Somebody leaves a consultation clear on the advice and then has to produce documents, sign an agreement and understand a fee before anything is actually filed. Nothing moves until that is done, and it does not do itself.

Because it is the point at which a matter either starts properly or starts badly. A retainer sets out the scope of the work, the fee, and what is not included, and a client who signs without understanding those three things has a dispute waiting.

It also fixes the record. Where the scope is written down at the outset, a later question about whether something was covered has an answer that both sides agreed to. That protects the client at least as much as the firm.

A Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultant cannot act at the Federal Court of Canada. Only a lawyer may, so a consultant whose client has been refused and needs judicial review, or a mandamus application on a stalled file, has to refer that work out.

Sweta manages those relationships. Consultants and other firms bring refusals, procedural fairness letters and delay cases to Kapil Rathod, and she is the first contact on them: what the deadline is, what the file needs, and whether it is something the firm will take.

The arrangement suits both sides. The consultant keeps the client relationship and the immigration work, and the part that requires a lawyer goes to one, on a matter that was assessed before it was accepted rather than after.

Business development for the firm, which in practice means the referral relationships above and the operational side of taking on more of that work without the service dropping.

It is the part of a small practice that usually has nobody assigned to it. A firm can be good at the legal work and still lose files at intake, and the fix is administrative rather than legal.