Over the past year, I've reviewed more than 50 O-1 visa petitions. After navigating three O-1 approvals myself - all without a lawyer - people started reaching out asking me to review their petitions before filing. Here are some of the common patterns I noticed: Pattern #1: Wrong evidence type What I saw: People claiming they satisfied the "Scholarly Articles" criterion by submitting: LinkedIn articles they wrote Personal blog posts Unpublished papers Or claiming "Lead role