Written for fellow counsel: the difference between firms that use FOIA as an occasional errand and firms that run it as infrastructure shows up in outcomes. Here is the operating pattern — and the courthouse behind it when queues become the obstacle.
Requests that outlive the statutory clock stop being paperwork problems — constructive exhaustion opens the courthouse, and FOIA litigation converts "in process" into a production schedule. Immigration practices rarely want to run that suit themselves; this firm takes exactly those referrals, in the district where nearly every agency answers, with referral and co-counsel structures that keep your client yours. The same lane serves the delay and denial work upstream of the records.
Yes — records suits, delay suits and APA challenges are exactly the federal-court work this practice exists for, with the client-ownership terms the referral page spells out.
Queues move constantly and the honest answer is 'longer than the statute says' — which is why the intake-time request pattern matters, and why the lawsuit exists for files that truly stall.
Court appearances show counsel of record honestly — behind that line, analysis and drafting flow through co-counsel arrangements in the ordinary way. The referral page covers the mechanics.