I thought we covered this ad nauseum. For those of you making fun of people who hired a lawyer, keep in mind that not everybody's case is straight forward - ie. you crossed the border from Mexico. There are over stayers, people under orders of deportation, people who have minor offenses, people who have other family members that they don't want to accidentally get in trouble, etc.

For them, it'd be riskier to just assume things and a lawyer was money well spent. Also keep in mind that there are many applications that were filled out incorrectly (some even with lawyers), and there are people whose wait times were exceeded because they filled things out themselves and put in the wrong answers.