The Legal Aid Immigration team is headed up by Tom Giles. Tom is a Partner at the firm and has been practising exclusively in Immigration law since qualifying in 2007.
He has a national reputation for his work with detained clients and those facing deportation and has represented the appellants in a number of high profile cases.
The Legal Aid team is able to assist in all of the following areas of work:
All our solicitors and caseworkers are accredited to conduct legal aid work by the Law Society under the Immigration and Asylum Accreditation Scheme. Those assisting particularly vulnerable clients, including children, undergo regular Enhanced CRB checks.
Legal Aid work is subject to a strict income and merits test. If your case falls within one of the areas listed above and you wish you can check your financial eligibility.
For some matters which are not automatically covered by Legal Aid, it may be possible to apply for Exceptional Case Funding (‘ECF’). ECF will usually only be available to people whose human rights or European Union rights would be breached if they did not have legal aid. In general, this requires you to show that it would be very difficult, or impossible, for you to present your case without legal assistance.
If you think you may be eligible for ECF, please look at the guidance and information available on gov.uk. Depending on the nature of the case we will either apply for ECF on your behalf or we may ask you to make your own application for ECF and to instruct us if/when it is granted.