Best Immigration Lawyers UK + Brexit Immigration Legal Advice (London, Birmingham & Beyond)

by Shiela on August 20, 2017

Needing a top immigration lawyer to help with your immigration law issues? Where you’re an entrepreneur or investor (Tier 1), or looking for a visa to stay with your partner or family or need business immigration legal advice, an immigration lawyer can help you. The following are some of the best firms of immigration solicitors in the UK (inc those based in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol and beyond). And further down this post you’ll find our guide to Brexit and immigration law in the UK, for both businesses worried about the impact of Brexit on their staffing, and for individuals worried about their rights and how it will affect them and their families.

Some of the Best Immigration Lawyers UK (London, Birmingham & Beyond)

ias-immigration-lawyers-london-uk

Immigration Advice Service https://iasservices.org.uk/ (London and 21 other locations)

“Immigration Advice Service is a dynamic immigration law firm that provides assistance to both individual and corporate clients, including businesses and charities of all sizes, entrepreneurs, overseas investors, families and students.”; service provides specialist immigration lawyers across the UK in the following locations: Aberdeen, Belfast/Northern Ireland, Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Cardiff, Cheshire/North Wales, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Hounslow – West London, Leeds, Leicester, Limerick – Republic of Ireland, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Newcastle, Norwich, Oldham, Peterborough, Preston, Sheffield, Wakefield.

Good Advice UK Immigration Lawyers

Good Advice UK http://www.goodadviceuk.com/  (London, UK)

” GOOD ADVICE UK provides specialist legal immigration advice and services on all UK immigration applications including entry clearances, leave to enter/remain, residence, investment, nationality, citizenship, EEA free movement, immigration employment documents, appeals and asylum claims.”

Cross Border UK London Immigration Solicitors

Cross Border Legal http://crossborderlegal.co.uk (Leicester, UK)

“Do you need any UK immigration and human rights legal advice? Are you looking for a fully qualified UK immigration and human rights solicitor that understands you? Free immigration advice –  Remember to claim your up to maximum 30 mins free initial consultation”; “Our offices are about one hour from London by train, although my immigration clients contact me from all parts of England and abroad for UK Immigration Advice”

westkin-immigration-law-solicitors-specialists

Westkin Associates, Immigration Law Specialists http://www.westkinassociates.com/ (London, UK)

“Specialist Immigration Lawyers in London – with a Difference”; “Leading immigration lawyers situated in the heart of Mayfair, London. Our immigration law firm focuses on all aspects of immigration law. Our area of expertise extends to visas for specialist business reasons such as Tier 1 (Investors), Tier 1 (Entrepreneurs) or more general UK business visas such as Tier 2.”

Richmond Chambers Immigration Barristers Lawyers London

Richmond Chambers Immigration Barristers http://www.immigrationbarrister.co.uk/

“Richmond Chambers LLP is a multi-award winning, innovative partnership of specialist immigration barristers and other immigration law professionals. Practising from the heart of London’s Covent Garden, our UK immigration barristers provide expert legal advice and representation, directly to individuals and businesses, in relation to all aspects of UK immigration law.”

davidson-morris-london-immigration-lawyers

Davidson Morris https://www.davidsonmorris.com/ – London, UK

“DavidsonMorris is a modern legal services provider that specialises in providing high quality immigration legal advice to both businesses and individuals.”; “We are based in the City of London, Cambridge and in Aberdeen with a large team of specialist immigration staff including immigration solicitors, former Home Office employees and legal support.”

How a UK Immigration Lawyer Can Help You

If you’re looking to live in the UK or visit for an extended period of time, it’s recommended that you hire a good UK immigration solicitor. Such solicitors should be able to provide you with all the legal advice and representation you need and can help synthesise complex subjects and years of expertise into easy-to-understand language and straight-to-the-point guidance.

Many immigration law firms will provide free initial legal advice, so it’s worth checking before booking your first consultation.

Courts for Immigration Law in the UK

Whether it’s a seemingly straight-forward application for a VISA or a more complicated case involve the First Tier or Upper Tier Tribunal of Asylum Chambers and Higher Courts, your immigration lawyer will be able to help.

Back in 2010, the Immigration and Asylum Chambers were established in both tiers of the Unified Tribunals framework created by the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007. These Chambers replaced the former Asylum and Immigration Tribunal. The First-tier Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum) are responsible for handling appeals against some decisions made by the Home Office relating to:

  • permission to stay in the UK
  • deportation from the UK
  • entry clearance to the UK

in addition to handling applications for immigration bail from people being held by the Home Office on immigration matters. You can read more about the first-tier tribunal (Immigration and Asylum) here.

The Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) is a superior court of record dealing with appeals against decisions made by the First-tier Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber). And you can find details of recent decisions by the Upper Tier Chamber here in the Upper Tier Immigration and Asylum Chamber Decisions Database.

Can you handle an immigration legal matter yourself? Or do you need to hire an immigration lawyer to do it for you? Which is best?

If you’re looking to apply for a UK visa, there’s a great deal of information to collect and questions to be answered. You’ll probably be confused by some or many of the questions on the application forms and official guidelines – indeed the guidelines will rarely be tailored precisely for your individual circumstances. While in most cases you don’t need to hire an immigration lawyer, the following are reasons why it’s often best to instruct an immigration solicitor:-

  1. You’ll save time – instead of several weeks completing a visa application, your immigration lawyer can usually cut the required time down significantly
  2. You’ll probably get it right first – you’re more likely to have a perfect application and avoid having it refused due to an administrative mistake on your form. Support with communications to UKVI and speeding the process
  3. You’re more likely to speed up the process – your immigration lawyer will know and understand the system, including how to communicate effectively with UKVI (UK Visas and Immigration)
  4. You’ll get the best advice for your circumstances – with immigration laws changing constantly, particularly in light of Brexit, your immigration lawyer will probably be staying abreast of all the relevant changes and will have a good idea of what’s best for your own circumstances, particularly if they’re advised hundreds or thousands of people on their own immigration law issues in the past.

These are just a few of the reasons why you’d want to think about hiring an immigration solicitor in the UK.

How to Choose the Best Immigration Lawyer

There are so many immigration lawyers around in the UK (with more starting their practice each year) that it can seem daunting for you to decide who to choose. The following are just some of the things you should look out for:-

  1. Are they specialist immigration lawyers? It’s better not to hire a generalist lawyer when there are so many immigration law specialists available. Check, for instance, if your lawyer has The Law Society’s (England & Wales) immigration and asylum law accreditation (which provides recognised quality standards for asylum practitioners). There is a similar equivalent immigration accreditation provided by the Law Society of Scotland. Although accreditation isn’t everything – your lawyer can still be an expert without it.
  2. Do they have a great reputation? If you type the law firm that your lawyer works for into Google what comes up? Do they have great reviews and testimonials? Note you’ll almost always see one or two negative reviews if they handle a significant volume of cases given that the lawyer can’t 100% guarantee the outcome of an immigration law case, but the majority should be good reviews.
  3. Are they based locally for you? Many specialist immigration lawyers in the UK are based in London, Birmingham, Manchester and in other major cities so you may have to be prepared to travel. If you live in a small town, don’t expect the best experts in the business to be there.
  4. How much do they cost? – how expensive is your immigration lawyer going to be? Don’t be afraid to ask. Ideally your lawyer will provide fixed fees or an estimate of cost. If they use hourly rates for billing, try to pin them down to a more precise and accurate forecast of cost in their feeing arrangement.  

Immigration Lawyers for Business Immigration Services and Legal Advice

While many individuals require immigration legal advice, so do businesses and specialist immigration lawyers can help with business immigration legal representation and advice. Some of the most popular services in this respect are to do with:-

  • investor visas
  • illegal working compliance
  • sponsorship licensed visa
  • sponsor skilled worker
  • global migration planning
  • entrepreneur visa
  • temporary workers
  • point based system
  • temporary worker

and various others.

Business owners and managers don’t have time or, in some cases, the capacity to understand all of the complexities of immigration law and its impact on their business. Particularly given the detrimental impact on your business of getting it wrong (eg losing a valuable worker or getting fined and having bad publicity harming your company’s reputation), hiring an immigration lawyer when needed to help you understand business visa criteria and immigration rules in the UK generally is highly recommended. Many immigration lawyers for businesses will also provide free legal advice so it’s worth shopping around.

Brexit and Immigration Law in the UK – how will Brexit affect you?

The impact of Brexit on businesses and individuals is starting to become more clear, with the UK government serving formal notice under Article 50 of The Treaty on European Union to terminate the UK’s membership of the EU on 29 March 2017.

Brexit is particularly distressing for businesses worried about the impact of Brexit on their staffing, and for individuals worried about their rights and how it will affect them and their families.

In terms of practical options for businesses, an audit of your workforce both in the UK and Europe should be considered to work out how employees working outside of their country of origin could be affected with post-Brexit immigration rules. While such immigration rules and policies aren’t yet clearly defined, they will certainly be the subject of great amounts of debate and contention. Nevertheless, having a good idea of risks to your business’ workforce is important. Some immigration law firms may be able to undertake such an immigration audit for you.

For individuals concerned about Brexit, for EEA nationals currently living in the UK, if you have gained permanent residence rights, you may be eligible to naturalise as a British citizen. And, for EU nationals who have been in the UK exercising Treaty rights for over 10 years, there is an option to have the UK Immigration Rules recognise their right to remain indefinitely. It’s worth reading these blogs here and here by Richmond Chambers for more information about this.

Points Based System Immigration Legal Advice for Studying, Working & Settling in the UK

If you’re looking to come to the UK for the purposes of studying, getting a job or to live with family or a partner already in the UK, your eligibility can be assessed under the Points Based System.

What is the Points-Based System (PBS) for immigration law purposes? This is the means of regulating immigration to the UK from outwith the EEA. Composed of five tiers, replacing all previous work permits and entry schemes. You can find out more about the Points-Based System here.

Immigration lawyers can help you better understand the PBS in the following areas:-

  • Individual Settling in UK
  • Indefinite Leave to Remain
  • Family of EEA Nationals
  • Partner Visa
  • Tier 1 Visa
  • Tier 2 Visa
  • Tier 4 Visa
  • Tier 5 Visa
  • Individual Studying or Working in UK
  • Naturalisation and Citizenship
  • Dependents (eg children)

And more.

Need help with Personal Injury Claims or Other Legal Services in London?

And if you’re looking for a lawyer in London to help you with a personal injury claim or related legal issue to do with an accident in or around London caused by someone else’s negligence, see our list of some of the best accident claims lawyers in London here, If you do have a relevant personal injury claim, you’re probably best speaking to a specialist lawyer first, rather than trying to start the claim yourself to give you the best chance of a high level of compensation.

For road traffic defence lawyers in London click here, and for wills and probate lawyers in London click here.

Immigration Law For Other Jurisdictions

For Immigration Law in Canada, see our new article: Judicial Review in Immigration Law: Your Path to Fair Decisions with Jasmin Sandhu and see our guide to some of the Best Canadian Free Legal Advice Providers which include Canadian immigration lawyers.

Need Help with Your Immigration Law Issue?

Need help with your immigration law issue or want to ask a free question? Get in touch and we’ll be happy to point you in the right direction.

For Immigration Law Firms – Want to get listed?

If you think your immigration law firm deserves to be listed, get in touch and we’ll be happy to consider you.

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