We are building a service that handles the logistics of a US-to-Spain filing: working out what a household needs, when each piece has to start, and getting every document authenticated, translated and filed in order.
We are pre-launch. There is no volume yet and we are not going to pretend otherwise. What we do have is a clear picture of the work, and a strong preference for setting up the handoff properly before the first job rather than after the twentieth.
Document type, issuing state, page count and a word estimate come with the job. You can quote it without opening the PDF, and you know whether it is a template or a one-off before you say yes.
Flat, 300 dpi, complete — including the apostille page and the back of every sheet that carries a seal. We check this before it reaches you, because a job that arrives as four phone photos at an angle is a job you have to do twice.
Exact spelling of every name, every place of birth, every date — transcribed by the client and confirmed before the job goes out. You can only translate what you can read, and a misread name on a sworn translation is the error that costs everybody a month.
4 of the documents in a typical filing are near-identical every time — FBI criminal record check, degree certificate, marriage certificate, birth certificate. Same layout, same fields, different names. Build the template once and we will keep sending you the same shape.
A household’s documents arrive as one job where the schedule allows it, rather than six emails over three weeks.
“Does the consulate need this one?” is our question to answer, not yours, and it is not billable for you. Anything that is not the translation itself comes back to us.
What does your rate actually depend on — pages, words, or how long the layout takes to rebuild?
At a steady monthly volume, what would a fair per-page rate be for the templated documents versus the one-offs?
What breaks a template? We assume a birth certificate from one state is reusable against another. Is that true, or is each state a separate build?
What makes a scan unusable, specifically? We would rather reject it at our end than send it to you.
How do you want the source material delivered, named and ordered?
What is the most common reason you have to go back to a client, and could we pre-empt it?
What turnaround is comfortable rather than merely possible — and what would you need in order to promise it?
How would you like to be paid, and on what cycle? What have agencies got wrong for you before?
We are not a law firm and we are careful about the line. We describe what an office asks for and what a document has to look like. The moment a question is about whether someone qualifies or what they should do, it is yours.
Organised, indexed, with every document’s status and issue date visible. Most of a first consultation is usually triage. This removes it.
“The record check is 88 days old and the appointment is in three weeks” — with the document attached — is a twenty-minute answer. “Can you help me with my visa” is ninety.
Short consultations booked from the app, paid up front, with the option to take the matter on properly if it turns out to need it.
Prior refusals, complex family situations, anything with an immigration history behind it — those are referrals, not things we try to route around. We would rather escalate early than explain a bad outcome later.
What would you want in front of you before a twenty-minute consultation, and in what order?
Where is the line for you? What should we always escalate rather than answer, even when we think we know?
What do people most often get wrong before they reach you, and is it something a schedule could have prevented?
Does a short paid consultation work as a format, or does it create more problems than it solves?
Is a service like this useful to your practice, or does it look like something that competes with it?
What would make you comfortable having your review named on a plan a client has paid for?
We think the value we can offer you is a clean, declared, batched job with the ambiguity already removed — and enough of them to be worth setting up for. Tell us where that is wrong.