Updated October 2026
Selling immigration law firm data for AI training: what it's worth and who buys it
micro1 says it looks for well defined workflows that employees execute repeatedly, and an immigration practice runs the same petition steps on every case.1
An immigration practice is a production line with judgment at every station. Each petition type has a fixed set of forms and supporting documents, but every case turns on facts: a gap in employment history, a prior refusal, an employer that changed its name. Paralegals carry most of the volume, and they write constantly: document requests to clients, status notes, cover letters, responses when the agency asks for more evidence.
That mix of repetition and fact-specific reasoning is the profile buyers describe. micro1 looks for well defined workflows employees execute repeatedly, and lists SOPs, templates and task histories. Mercor names legal as a target industry. Paralegals score 100 out of 100 on O*NET's email scale.
The difficulty is that almost every client record carries identity documents: passports, government ID numbers, family details. So the part of an immigration firm's archive worth discussing first is the firm's method, the part least tied to any one client: the checklists per visa category, the request-for-evidence response templates, the case-stage tracker. Raise everything that carries a client's identity with the licensing company before any export.
Worth
What a firm's data may be worth
Pre-set for a typical firm: 25 staff and 10 years of records. No buyer publishes pricing by industry, so industry does not move the band. Our estimate, not a buyer quote.
Buyers
Which buyers want this data
Each reason is the buyer's own published statement about the tools, data or industries it takes, matched to how immigration law firms work.
Featured partners
micro1
Looks for repeated, well defined workflows and lists templates, SOPs and task histories, which is what a per-category filing checklist and case tracker contain.1,12
- $100K to $2M+, micro1 says9
Watch out for: Says it removes personal details only "when relevant", so ask exactly how.13
Everyone else we reviewed
By score, with full reviews. We have no referral agreement with these companies, so we do not link out to them.
Mercor
Names legal and connects to Gmail, Outlook, Drive and Notion, where most small immigration firms keep correspondence and templates.14,15
Watch out for: It confirmed a cyberattack in 2026, and class actions followed.19,20
Nyne AI
Takes firms from 20+ US W-2 employees and 3+ years, which fits a mid-size immigration practice below micro1's 30-person floor.5
- $100K or more, Nyne says21
Watch out for: Pays only after the dataset is accepted, and publishes no timeline.22
Buyer demand
How buyers' own tools rate immigration law firms
No buyer publishes a price list by industry. These are settings inside buyers' and brokers' own estimators and intake forms, read from their public pages on 2026-10-14. They show how each company sorts industries, not what any firm was paid. The category shown is the one a firm would most likely pick; that match is ours.
| Company | Its category | How it rates the industry |
|---|---|---|
| Troveo | Legal | Tier 2 of 4: "Your industry carries above-average buyer demand." Price factor 1.15 in its estimator.23 |
| Polyshares | Legal | Marked premium in its intake list24 |
| VMS | Law | Higher weight in its estimator (factor 1.30)25 |
| Ventra | Legal, healthcare, financial services or accounting | Says it cannot take these industries right now26 |
Size rules buyers publish
Checked against 25 staff, the typical firm size this page's calculator is set to. Ask each buyer whether contractors and part-time staff count.
Polyshares
No headcount rule; the length and texture of the record matter more27
Mercor
None stated28
Troveo
No minimum stated; its estimator starts at 2029
Nyne
20+ US W-2 employees and 3+ years5
Handshake AI
20+ full-time employees and 3+ years30
micro1
Pewter
20+ staff and 3+ years33
Endless
Roughly 30+ employees34
Ventra
30+ US employees and 3+ years of records35
Supersoniq
50+ employees and 5+ years36
What buyers value
What in a firm's records buyers value
The column on the right is not legal advice: it lists what to raise with the buyer before anything is exported.
| Data | Where it lives | Why a buyer values it | Raise with the buyer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Checklists per visa and petition category | Docketwise, INSZoom or a shared drive | The firm's map of which forms and evidence each case type needs, updated as agency practice shifts. | Nothing specific |
| Request-for-evidence response templates | Word templates and the precedent folder | Argument structures the firm reuses when the agency questions eligibility, refined over hundreds of responses. | Whether any template still carries facts from the case it came from. |
| Case-stage tracker and status history | Case management system | Every case's path from intake to decision, with the delays and re-filings, as structured task history. | Client names, receipt numbers and government ID numbers attached to each case. |
| Client document-request emails | Outlook or Gmail, client portal | How paralegals explain, chase and verify evidence, often across languages. | Passports, ID numbers and family details inside replies and attachments. |
| Employer-client onboarding SOPs | Intranet or shared drive | The steps for opening a corporate sponsor relationship, from intake call to standing document lists. | Nothing specific |
| Internal deadline and coverage threads | Teams or Slack | How the firm triages filing windows and reassigns work when volume spikes. | Threads that discuss an individual client's facts. |
A week of records
A week of data at a firm
- Monday: forty document-request emails go out from the standard template, each edited for the client's category.
- Tuesday: an evidence request arrives; the attorney picks a prior response as the base and redlines it in a new draft.
- Wednesday: the case tracker is updated for twelve receipts and three transfers between service centers.
- Thursday: the employer-sponsor checklist is revised after a sponsor changes its corporate structure.
- Friday: a paralegal training note on a form edition change is posted to the shared drive.
Process
How it works with each buyer
In each buyer's own published words. Where a buyer publishes nothing, we say so rather than guess.
micro1
- Internal docs, SOPs and playbooks, knowledge bases, project management workflows, internal comms, templates, CRM and workflow metadata, task histories12
- 30 to 200 employees32
- $100K-$2M+ per data package; over $1M for unique data9
- PII removed "when relevant"13
- The company keeps ownership of its data and reviews samples before release37
- Not published
Mercor
Selling or closing
Selling or closing your firm? License its data first
Immigration practices are often built around one or two founding attorneys, so retirement and succession come up sooner than at larger firms. If you plan to sell or close the practice, ask each licensing company whether the firm's checklists, templates and case-stage records can be licensed separately from client files. Timing is flexible on some programs: Pewter says it takes firms that are winding down or already closed, as long as the records still exist.2
FAQ
Immigration law firms: questions, answered
Usually the method: category checklists, response templates, onboarding SOPs and the case tracker's structure. Endless lists intake workflows, templates and process documentation as in scope for law firms and keeps client matter content out. Case files themselves are the part to raise with the buyer.42
Each buyer describes its own process. Polyshares uses a third-party PII partner, DataFactor says identifiers are removed before use, and Nyne says names, identifiers and customer-specific details are removed and tested against an agreed standard. Ask which method applies to identity numbers and who checks the result.45,46,47
No buyer prices immigration practices. Published ranges mostly run $100K to $2M, as the buyers' own claims: Polyshares states $100K-$2M+, Jottings $100K-$250K for specialized histories, and monsterdata.ai $50K-$1M for a one-time sale. Endless says regulated material lowers its range, so checklists, templates and task history are the honest starting point for a price.10,48,49,50
We do not answer legal questions. Ask the licensing company: their team reviews this with you before anything is signed.
We do not answer legal questions. Ask the licensing company: their team reviews this with you before anything is signed.
We do not answer legal questions. Ask the licensing company: their team reviews this with you before anything is signed.
We do not answer legal questions. Ask the licensing company: their team reviews this with you before anything is signed.
Before you sign
Legal questions go to the licensing company
We do not answer legal questions. Ask the licensing company before you sign: their team reviews these with you.
Questions for this kind of business
- How will government ID numbers, receipt numbers and family details be found and removed, and do we approve the sample?
- Does your review cover state bar rules and ABA Model Rule 1.6 for an immigration practice?
- Are records of clients who are minors treated differently?
- Who owns this data: the company, an estate, or someone else?
- How do CCPA, GDPR, UK GDPR and state privacy laws apply, and is de-identified data still personal information?
- Could the data include privileged material or trade secrets?
- Do professional rules apply (AICPA, IRC 7216, HIPAA, ABA Model Rule 1.17, insurance agency contracts, adviser rules, state boards)?
Questions for any buyer
- Is the license exclusive, and for how long?
- Can you sublicense the data, and to whom?
- Which AI labs will receive it, and will you tell us?
- How long do you keep it, and how is it deleted?
- What is your liability cap, and who indemnifies whom?
- Will the contract ban re-identification of people in the data?
- Who removes personal data, by what method, and do we approve it first?