The labyrinth of U.S. immigration rules has a new player pledged to help make some sense of them. Its AI-powered portal, JustiGuide, promises to assist immigrants in establishing their eligibility, expedite filings, and help them find licensed attorneys — all the while providing translations of guidance and protecting user data.
The startup’s pitch is simple: a domain-tuned system that knows immigration law well enough to triage questions, surface relevant precedents, and expedite form work lawyers now usually outsource to paralegals. Obateru respectfully referenced Jesse Kweh-Lee, a co-founder who helped to navigate student status and H-1B and green card challenges, as someone whose journey defined the company’s product vision.
The timing is notable. While USCIS has said it’s making progress cutting net backlogs, millions of cases remain pending. Immigration courts had over 3 million pending matters in recent years, according to TRAC Immigration. And that adds up: With fees climbing under updated schedules and processing times that can extend multiple weeks or months, those hours saved during intake and form prep can add up to real cost savings.
Inside JustiGuide’s AI: How the Dolores Model Powers Guidance
At its center is “Dolores,” a domain-specific model trained on over 40,000 immigration-related decisions sourced from the Free Law Project. The company characterizes it as an ever-evolving system that combines retrieval of authoritative materials with structured prompts to ensure answers remain rooted in statute, regulations, policy memos, and case law.
Dolores is available in 12 languages, so the public can ask questions in their home language and get answers based on U.S. legal standards. For lawyers, the system aggregates document sets, marks evidence that is missing, and pre-populates forms — all tasks that would otherwise take up billable hours. According to JustiGuide, more than 47,000 people have already used the portal.
Identity protection is a major selling point. It claims that it runs its own on-prem infrastructure, encrypted at rest and in transit, restricts data access until a user approves a connection with an attorney, and anonymizes certain fields where they can be archived. The method was developed to allay the concerns of privacy-focused users and law firms that don’t want data sets to be commingled.
Who JustiGuide Serves Across the U.S. Immigration Journey
Early users include startup founders bringing foreign talent across borders; H-1B holders who work at competing startups and are thinking of sponsoring themselves on O-1 (try it for free), EB-2 NIW, or adjustment; and international students working on entrepreneurship projects.
Law firms connect to the portal in order to speed up intake and evidence gathering, while maintaining attorney oversight.
The company is also seeking to become registered as a law firm, with the goal of providing direct legal representation in tandem with its software. That hybrid model — software on the front end, with counsel steering things from behind — reflects a larger shift across legal tech toward automation handling what’s repeatable while lawyers get to focus on strategy and risk.
Guardrails and Accuracy to Reduce Risk and Hallucinations
For AI in the courtroom, a familiar challenge is overhelp — when it hallucinates. Academic benchmarks have identified material error rates in general-purpose models on nuanced legal prompts; this is where domain data, retrieval, and human review play a role. JustiGuide’s layout ensures that an attorney is in the stream for representation and places everything at arm’s length, with an emphasis on citations to recognized sources.
The regulatory backdrop is evolving. State bars stress that automating legal tasks should not cross into the unauthorized practice of law, and the Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review retains rules on accreditation for nonlawyer representatives. The American Bar Association has also urged lawyers about the duty of technology competence and duties related to confidentiality when using AI. The architecture of JustiGuide, and its attempt to register law firms, fits into these constraints.
User Acquisition and Ethics in Outreach and Consent Policies
As it first grew, the company programmed Dolores to watch public posts in online communities and message people who she saw needed help. That kind of outreach can work but raises questions from the platform about policy and consent; JustiGuide says its current model is about inbound users, explicit permissions, and clear disclosures.
If the system enables effective triage and prepared filings, “you could have a huge result.” Typical legal fees for ordinary petitions frequently soar into the four figures, and filing errors can result in time-consuming delays or denials. Even a mild reduction in the time lawyers spend — let’s say 20% to 30% on routine tasks — could mean significant savings for employers and families.
Competition and What’s Ahead for Immigration Legal Tech
JustiGuide enters a crowded field. In the last decade, immigration-centric platforms have pledged easier forms and fixed-fee packages while established firms have plowed money into their own automation. The differentiator here is a domain-trained assistant who can speak multiple languages, cite primary authority, and offer attorney matching — all in one workflow.
Government modernization could provide a tailwind. USCIS has added online accounts and e-filing for certain forms, but the system is still disjointed. If JustiGuide can land institutional licensing or partnerships — which the company alludes to as an ambition — it could be a front door, standardizing intake before it settles users onto official portals.
And the test now is whether such accuracy and compliance can be maintained at scale while winning over users. Should Dolores continue to improve and lawyers experience quantifiable increases in throughput without falling short of quality, the model could be a blueprint for high-stakes, multilingual legal workflows well beyond immigration.