I've successfully navigated three O-1 visa approvals - all without a lawyer. People assume that means I knew what I was doing from the start. I didn't. When I did it for the first time, I put in the work, reiterated my petition, and learned from an RFE. In the following petitions, I questioned every assumption, proofread my package with extreme scrutiny, and caught any mistakes before filing. Here are the mistakes I almost made - and what I learned: Mistake #1: Treating my pe

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they satisfied the "Scholarly Articles" criterion by submitting: LinkedIn articles they wrote Personal blog posts Unpublished papers Or claiming "Lead role