What I actually asked my attorney vs. what I researched myself

Worked with an attorney but did a lot of the evidence-gathering and organization myself, and want to share where I found that division of labor actually worked well, since "should I hire an attorney" comes up a lot here and the honest answer is often "it depends what for." What I leaned on my attorney for: strategic judgment calls on genuinely ambiguous evidence, review of my personal statement's legal framing, and the actual filing mechanics and compliance details I wasn't confident navigating alone. What I did myself: gathering and organizing raw evidence, drafting the personal statement's first several versions, requesting and following up on reference letters, and general research into how the criteria work. This isn't a universal recommendation — some people want an attorney handling everything, and that's a completely legitimate choice too, especially for a complex case. But if you're weighing how much to do yourself, the honest answer from my experience is: the mechanical, gathering-and-organizing work doesn't require an attorney, but the judgment calls on ambiguous evidence and the final legal review genuinely benefited from one.