I'm an immigration lawyer - AMA

[ImmigrationLawyer]

Not a TAAT, but inspired by a discussion on AIBU. I'm an immigration barrister with over 20 years experience. AMA!

Sorry OP, I hope that you're still taking questions.
Pretty personal one, I applied for naturalisation in December last year, and I still haven't got a decision. My MP isn't getting anywhere, and neither am I!
Is my next best thing to do is employee an immigration lawyer? Is there anything else I can do? Do you know of many people in my situation? Honestly, I have lived her for 12 years and was told my application was 'simple'!

Where does the money come from to pay you for working as an immigration lawyer?

Does any of it come from legal aid/govt sources, or are you paid by your clients with their own money?

I can't give advice on this thread, it's just for general questions about the law. I can say that it is possible to judicially review (or threaten judicial review) for delay, and that there are quite a few delay cases at the moment. A solicitor may be able to assist depending on all the circumstances.

I do a mixture of legal aid and private work.

Legal aid used to be available much more widely for immigration work and now it is primarily only available for asylum, deportation, and some judicial review, and obviously that is subject to the means test. I also do quite a bit of pro bono work.

I was going to ask how you're paid for your services. Presumably most asylum seekers cannot afford to pay a barrister.

How does legal aid work then? Are they automatically entitled to it? I assume it's funded by the tax payer?

Some can afford to pay privately..... I've represented independently wealthy asylum seekers. But they are the minority, because even people who were moderately comfortable in an asylum-producing country won't have savings which go very far here.

The person has to find a legal aid solicitor who has space for them (not easy if they are in a "legal aid desert" and so some try to represent themselves). The solicitor then accepts them for legal aid and deals with the application up to the decision stage.

If they are refused, then the solicitor has to decide whether or not to grant CLR ("controlled legal representation") which is legal aid for the appeal stage. To grant CLR the appeal must have above 50% prospects of success AND the client must meet the means test. If the solicitor thinks it's hopeless, they won't get CLR.

"What stops the solicitor just granting CLR to everyone claiming they all have a 75% chance of success?" I hear you cry. Well, the Legal Aid Agency come in and audit them, and if they haven't got a proper success rate then their contract gets taken away, so a fairly huge incentive to do it properly.

The solicitor then gets up to £1600 to prepare the appeal. As a minimum that is a full asylum appeal statement responding to each of the issues raised in the refusal letter (the refusal letter generally runs to approximately 50 paragraphs), and must produce the statement in the appellant's own language with a certified translation. They must organise a "bundle" of evidence including any evidence the client is able to produce (with certified translations) and they must go through all the country background material and put in anything needed. And the bundle needs to be properly indexed and paginated.

I get a £302 fixed fee for the hearing. That includes the preparation, usually something between 3 and 6 hours depending on the size of the bundle and complexity of the case, then going to the hearing, seeing the client and going through procedure, and representing at the hearing - so in total, about 1.5 - 2 days work. That is before tax, NI, travel and chambers' rent.

So yes, legal aid is paid for by the taxpayer - I give you all the detail because I think the taxpayer gets a relatively good deal. 🙂

Actually OP, those figures sound very low for legal costs in this country.

Does that mean working in immigration is like being an NHS dentist, where the govt basically expects you to do cut price work?

Why is the UK seen as a better option than, say, France or Germany, for people for don't even speak English or have family here? We have record usage of food banks, the NHS is in disarray, there's a housing crisis, yet people will risk their lives to get here from France. Why is that?

Yes, I think it's fair to say that all legal aid work is paid at a significantly lower rate than private work. Crime is particularly bad, hence the strikes earlier this year. I think the government would say it's "good value" rather than "cut price" but their own barristers are paid an hourly rate (not an especially high one, it's fair to say).

Really interesting, thankyou

I linked to this earlier which has the relevant statistics about France and Germany researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN01403/SN01403.pdf
"In 2020, Germany received the largest number of asylum applicants among EU countries (122,000), followed by France (93,200), Spain (88,500), Greece (40,600), and Italy (26,500). Together, these top five countries received 79% of asylum applications in the EU27."

That's numerically - which is different to per 10,000 population, where again we are below France and Germany which are both above average where we are below:

"During this period Cyprus had the largest number of asylum applications per 10,000 people (84), followed by Malta (48), Greece (38), Luxembourg (21), and Spain (19).
In 2020, there were around 6 asylum applicants for every 10,000 people resident in the UK, according to the Eurostat statistics. Across the EU27 there were 11 asylum applications for every 10,000 people."

The UK receives below the average number per 10,000 population - fewer than Finland, more than Bulgaria.

So far more do stay in France or Germany than try to come to the UK. For those who do try to come over, it's usually because they have family or friends here, speak English, have some other links, believe that their claim will be more fairly processed here, or have no option at all over where they are going as they are being smuggled / trafficked.