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The California State Bar announced last week that it had taken over a downtown Livermore business whose owner allegedly provided unlicensed legal services and advice on immigration filings that led one client to risk removal from the country and separation from his family for up to 22 years.
An Alameda County Superior Court judge authorized the state legal authority to take over Del Valle Professional Services at 167 S. P St. on April 16, at which point four boxes containing 97 files were seized and immigration documents from numerous clients were downloaded from two computers by officials with the bar’s Office of Chief Trial Counsel.
The move stemmed from an investigation into a 2024 complaint from a family, who alleged that their eldest son’s immigration filings were mishandled by the business’s owner, Irene Raygoza, leading to delays in achieving authorization and risking an order that could have separated the family by forcing him to leave the country for more than two decades.
“This case underscores the serious harm that can occur when someone who is not licensed to practice law takes on complex immigration matters,” said state bar Chief Trial Counsel George Cardona. “This family trusted that they were receiving legitimate legal guidance, and instead their son’s future in this country was put in peril due to unqualified and unlawful conduct.”
The family alleged that they retained legal services from Raygoza in 2019, despite the fact that she is not a licensed attorney and was not being supervised by a licensed attorney.
When contacted by investigators with the state bar looking into the complaint that was submitted in 2024, Raygoza said that she had not meant any harm to the family and acknowledged that she was not a licensed attorney or an “accredited representative.” She admitted to preparing a form for the family, but said that she is not an authorized immigration consultant, and denied advertising immigration services, according to state bar officials.
Investigators found the latter portion of that statement to be untrue over the course of two site visits early last year, in which they found immigration services being advertised via signage outside the building and on the company’s business card in both English and Spanish when it was open for business as recently as this February. The business was additionally found to be operating without registration with the secretary of state.
“Based on the information obtained through the course of the investigation, it was determined that Raygoza is engaging in the unauthorized practice of law in California by actively advertising legal services and providing such services to the public,” state bar officials wrote in an ex parte complaint that was submitted to Alameda County Superior Court in addition to petition for assumption of jurisdiction earlier this month.
In an objection filed April 22, Raygoza cited a “dispute as to the material as to what actually occurred, which dramatically contradicts the facts alleged by the petitioner and which if proven by respondent, cannot as a matter of law properly support a finding that Respondent engaged in the unauthorized practice of law.”
“In such a case, due process requires that Respondent be given a full evidentiary hearing and opportunity to disprove Petitioner’s allegations,” Raygoza wrote. “Therefore Respondent respectfully objects to the proposed finding in Paragraphs 2, 3 and 4 that Respondent engaged in the unauthorized practice of law.”
A hearing in the case is scheduled for 3 p.m. Thursday at the Rene C. Davidson Courthouse in Oakland.
Raygoza’s clients can retrieve their files by contacting the state bar at 415-538-2349 in both English and Spanish.
