The asylum procedure is a ‘discourse-based’ process. The question of whether someone is granted asylum is determined by the performance of oral narratives during asylum interviews and their textual (re)production in decisions. This is the front stage side of the procedure. On the backstage side, immigration lawyers assist asylum seekers and prepare them for interactions with the authorities. While research on language and asylum is gradually growing, existing studies either deal with the front- or the backstage side of the procedure, while neglecting the interconnection. There is a lack of knowledge about the impact of the lawyer on the frontstage side of the asylum procedure, either directly in the form of comments during asylum interviews or indirectly through counselling work that resonates in the applicant‘s frontstage performance. The study takes a sociolinguistic-ethnographic approach and draws on theory from narrative studies, language policy, interpreting and language and law research. It examines the narrative, multilingual and legal-institutional conditions of applying for asylum. In doing so, the proposed research is the first wide-ranging investigation that foregrounds the pivotal role of the lawyer with regard to how refugee identities are constructed at the intersection of the front- and backstage in the asylum procedure. The results of the study will substantially advance the scholarship on language in asylum bureaucracies in and beyond the Belgian context.