Immigration

Our business immigration team has been consistently ranked as one of the best in London and the UK and advises on all aspects of UK business immigration law.

We are a "very professional immigration service" according to The Legal 500 (2022), which comments that "Russell-Cooke is at the other end of the scale from most firms." One commentator said: "they are very knowledgeable, responsive and willing to help. They kept the process simple for us. They were fair in their billing."

Why us?

Added confidence: We have for many years in a row been independently ranked as one of the leading business immigration law teams in London and the UK. This gives our clients added confidence that we are a good choice to help them achieve the immigration related outcomes that they want.

Success rate: There are many grounds on which sponsor licence and visa applications can be refused, including a failure to meet the eligibility requirements set out in the Immigration Rules and/or separate Home Office guidance, incorrect or insufficient documentation being submitted, ineligible Key Personnel applying to hold those roles, applications for sponsor licences and/or visas being incorrectly completed, deadlines being missed, incorrect application fees being paid, Certificates of Sponsorship being incorrectly assigned. However, our solicitors have an extremely high success rate with business immigration applications..

Speed and insight: Many of our clients have required applications to the Home Office to be processed more quickly than standard Home Office processing times, and where there is no official mechanism to speed up such applications. Our solicitors are adept at 'speeding up' Home Office processing times in these scenarios for our employer clients. For instance, we have often had applications, which can take between 8 - 18 weeks to process, approved within just a few working days by deploying creative arguments.

Personal approach: We understand that immigration is intensely personal, even for businesses, and we reflect this in our advice and approach.

Trusted by a very wide range of organisations: Businesses across a very wide range of industry sectors have trusted us to help them achieve their immigration related objectives in the UK, ranging from London based, to national and multi-billion pound listed multinationals, to large financial institutions, to professional services firms, to charities, to small and medium sized businesses. 

Our immigration law advice for businesses

Business immigration related areas that our immigration lawyers advise employers on include:

• Intra-Company Transfer visa applications
• Skilled Worker visa applications and conducting a Resident Labour Market Test
• Advice relating to all aspects of the sponsorship regime, including licensing as a sponsor with UK Visas and Immigration and ongoing compliance with the sponsor regime
• Start-up, Global Talent and Innovator visas
• Representative of an Overseas Business visa applications
• contentious business immigration matters, including challenging unlawful Home Office decisions, e.g. by judicial review or appeal
• compliance audits and manuals and ongoing compliance with UK immigration laws and sponsorship duties
• advising on appropriate record keeping and monitoring processes
• standard visitor visas (formerly called business visitor visas)
• training for businesses, including training on compliance procedures and recruiting international staff
• visas for dependants and overseas entry clearance applications
• 'switching' between relevant immigration categories
• immigration appeals and visa extension applications
• immigration aspects of mergers and acquisitions
• advising high-net worth individuals on Tier 1Investor visa applications

We also provide advice to individual immigration clients: individual immigration services.

Our immigration team is a member of the Immigration Law Practitioners' Association (ILPA).

Know-how

Various immigration solicitors in our team have for many years provided other lawyers with training relating to business immigration, including via talks to other leading law firms and The Employment Lawyers Association (ELA).

Immigration solicitors in our team have written immigration articles for legal publications such as Corporate Counsel, Corporate International, Lawyer Monthly, Global Legal Post, Tolley's Employment Law and the International Bar Association's Immigration and Nationality Newsletter and have provided expert commentary on immigration law developments for national publications such as The Guardian, The Times, The Independent and Personnel Today.