Latif Solicitors News

 

 

October 2009

Diversity Event
 
The firm was involved in a Diversity event at the University of Northumbria on the 5th March 2009. The event was very well attended. Amongst the speakers were the President of the Law Society and our own Principal Solicitor Liaquat Latif who is the chair of the North East Ethnic Solicitors Diversity Group and he spoke about his experiences in the legal profession. After the event the Speakers had a meal at the Red Mezze an excellent Turkish restaurant in Newcastle. We will attach some of the photographs of the event and a copy of Liaquat Latif's speech.
 
Latif Solicitors has continued to support the work of its sister company Equality and Diversity Services Ltd.
 
Seminars and advice sessions
 
We confirm that we have held a number of seminars and advice sessions at Community centres throughout the North East in 2009. We have continued to give regular advice at the Bangladeshi Community Centre on Elswick Road. We will be announcing further dates and locations for future advice sessions soon.
 
 
Local Community advice sessions.
 
Our Principal Solicitor Liaquat Latif was involved in giving Immigration advice on Radio Tees Fast FM during the month of Ramadan. He had a lot of interesting and varied calls as well as discussion on the many changes to the Immigration rules. We will shortly be involved in another forthcoming Immigration Radio advice session. We will provide details of these sessions so hopefully everyone can tune in.
 
 
Ethnic Diversity Solicitors Group
 
We will be holding the next meeting of the group at the University of Northumbria.
We will shortly announce a date and time.
 
 
Immigration appeals
 
Latif Solicitors has maintained an extremely high success rate at Immigration Appeals at the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal. We have also regularly been dealing with cases, which had originally been dealt with other Advisors. Some of preparation in these cases leaves a lot to be desired and it is even more difficult to correct errors after the client has already been represented at a previous appeal. It is very important therefore to instruct competent representatives as soon as the refusal is received to prepare and represent at Immigration Appeals.
 
 
 
Removals from the U.K
 
We have found that the UK Border Agency has recently increased its levels of removals of foreign nationals from the U.K. We have been dealing with a large number of cases in this area. It is important to take instructions as soon as possible after arrest in order to make suitable representations including where appropriate the making of CIO and Court Bail applications.
 
 
The Points Based System
 
We are dealing with a number of cases where we are finding that the UK Border Agency is refusing applications under the Points Based System for minor reasons including the submission of incorrect photographs which causes massive problems for clients especially where there is no right of appeal against the decision. We are trying to identify cases of particularly unfair decisions which we will forward to the Immigration Law Practitioners Association.