Immigration work is built from forms and the evidence behind them. A family petition, an adjustment of status, a naturalization or a removal defense each has its own government forms, and each form needs documents from the client: birth and marriage certificates, passports, tax returns, proof of a relationship, translations of anything not in English. Then come receipt notices, biometrics appointments, interviews and requests for evidence with a response date. Cases run for months or years, and many clients read Spanish or another language more easily than English.
Before a lawyer can act for a client before USCIS, the representation itself is a filing: USCIS says an attorney or accredited representative must submit Form G-28 to establish eligibility to represent a client in an immigration matter, and a supervised law student or graduate is listed on the supervising attorney’s G-28.
What an immigration firm needs from its software
Form preparation. The center of many immigration practices is software that fills government forms from a client questionnaire and keeps them current with each new edition. This is specialist work, and it is the part Coil does not do.
Document collection that does not run through your inbox. Dozens of documents per case, from clients who often use a phone, and a clear record of what has arrived and what is still missing.
Deadlines that come from paper you receive. A request for evidence, an interview notice or a hearing date arrives by mail and has to become a dated task the same day.
Client communication in the client’s language. Status questions are constant, and a client who cannot read the update will call instead.
Fee handling for flat fees. Most immigration work is quoted as a flat fee per stage, and the government filing fees are separate. Under ABA Model Rule 1.15(c), fees paid in advance go into trust and come out as they are earned. States differ on whether a flat fee can be treated as earned when it is paid, so check your own rule before you set this up.
A conflict check that includes relatives. A petitioner and a beneficiary, or two spouses, can have interests that later split, and the people who call about a case are often relatives of the person it concerns.
What Coil does for immigration firms
- Matters and contacts with custom fields. Add the fields your practice uses, such as A-number, receipt number, priority date or visa category, and they sit on the record and are searchable.
- Matter templates with task workflows. Build your own template for each case type, with the tasks, their offsets from the opening date and the custom fields it needs. Coil does not ship an immigration template; you write the one that matches how your office works, once.
- Deadlines and calendar. Enter a response date as a deadline, chain follow-up tasks from a trigger date, and subscribe to firm and personal iCal feeds that stay correct across time zones.
- A client portal in Spanish. One-use login links that expire in thirty minutes, a client who sees only their own matters, shared documents, uploads and two-way messages.
- Documents. Versions linked to the original, folders and tags, text extraction for search, and a check that refuses an upload whose contents do not match its file name.
- Messages. Portal messages both ways, and text messages through your own Twilio account, stored on the matter.
- Intake and conflicts. Web leads, follow-up sequences, and conversion to a client and matter that will not skip the conflict check. The check uses fuzzy matching, folds diacritics, and covers alternate names, so a name entered with and without its accents is still found.
- Trust for advance fees. Each advance payment is recorded against the client and the matter, and no transfer can take a client below zero.
What Coil does not do for immigration
Coil does not prepare, fill or store templates for USCIS, Department of State or immigration court forms. It does not check case status with USCIS, track the Visa Bulletin or calculate priority dates. It does not file anything with USCIS, and court e-filing in general is in Phase 3, waiting on a filing vendor. It does not translate documents, and Spanish is the only non-English language on client pages.
Matters billed in Mexican pesos or another currency are in Phase 2, in testing, along with invoicing and online payments. Court rule sets are generic starters, and Coil carries no immigration court deadlines of its own.
Who this suits
An immigration practice that already has a form tool it likes, and wants the rest of the office in one place, is who Coil fits. If you want form preparation and case management in the same product, Coil is not that today, and this page would rather tell you now than after you have moved your files.
Questions
Does Coil fill out USCIS forms?
No. Coil has no library of USCIS or immigration court forms and does not fill them from a questionnaire. Firms that rely on form preparation use a specialist product for that step. Coil holds the matter, the documents, the deadlines and the client conversation around it.
Can my clients use Coil in Spanish?
Yes. The client portal and the emails Coil sends to clients are available in Spanish. Spanish is the only language other than English on the client side today.
Can I track receipt numbers, A-numbers and priority dates?
Yes, as custom fields you add to matters or contacts, so they show on the record and are searchable. Coil does not fetch case status from USCIS or read the Visa Bulletin, so the values are what you enter.
Can a client upload documents from their phone?
Yes. The client logs in through a one-use link sent to their email, sees only their own matters and can upload files to the matter. Coil checks each upload and refuses a file that is not what its name claims to be.
Sources
Last checked October 28, 2026.