Immigration law firm making £1.7m in legal aid loses contract over standards | Immigration and asylum

An immigration regulation agency that signed up 1000’s of asylum seekers and generated revenue of £1.7m in authorized assist within the final yr, regardless of solely using 5 solicitors to symbolize them, has had its authorities contract terminated after issues about its efficiency, the Guardian has discovered.The choice leaves many asylum seekers struggling to seek out new authorized representatives at a time when the federal government is rising the variety of circumstances it refuses.Within the yr ending June 2025 preliminary asylum grants fell from 58% to 48%, leaving extra folks having to lodge appeals, one thing that’s troublesome to do with no authorized consultant.Middlesex Legislation Chambers’ authorized assist revenue for immigration work dramatically elevated from £43,000 in 2021 to £1.7m in 2025. The agency is listed on the Solicitors Regulation Authority web site as having 15 workplaces across the nation, many in authorized assist deserts equivalent to Peterborough, Plymouth and Crawley.When the Guardian phoned these workplaces there was both no reply or a receptionist for the workplace block the place the agency rented an area stated it was not there.The director of Middlesex Legislation Chambers, legal defence solicitor Sheraz Chowdhry, stated the agency had deliberate to develop into these areas however usually had not executed so and had now terminated rental preparations for these workplace areas.It presently has one solicitor employed at its Southall workplace doing non-public immigration work, one solicitor at an workplace in Canary Wharf in east London doing household work and a small crew at its Uxbridge workplace doing legal defence work. Authorized assist contracts proceed for these areas of labor.Chowdhry joined the agency on the finish of final yr simply months earlier than the earlier lawyer accountable for immigration work, Hina Choudhery, died from issues of most cancers.He stated: “In the end the agency, obstructed by Hina’s poor well being over the past two years or so, has discovered it troublesome to take care of its as soon as very excessive requirements within the immigration division.”He added he discovered concerning the termination of the authorized assist contract for immigration work simply weeks in the past. “The choice was additionally solely communicated to us by way of electronic mail on 20 August 2025.”When requested to clarify why the agency had expanded its caseload so dramatically and the way it was attainable to offer sufficient authorized illustration for 1000’s of asylum seekers with simply 5 immigration solicitors and a mixture of 15 junior and extra senior caseworkers, he stated: “No solicitor was right here through the growth part. It’s troublesome for me to clarify how the agency all of a sudden grew so giant in such a brief area of time. I have no idea.”A typical caseload for a legally aided asylum solicitor or caseworker is 15–20. With the variety of employees employed by the agency throughout its interval of speedy growth every solicitor and caseworker would have had about 164 circumstances.Frances Timberlake, of Migrants Organise, which has many migrant members who complained concerning the service supplied by the agency, stated: “It’s the Ministry of Justice’s responsibility to make sure that authorized recommendation is on the market to individuals who want it. However many years of funding cuts and neglect to the authorized assist system have left many individuals in our communities with none help.skip previous publication promotionGet the day’s headlines and highlights emailed direct to you each morningPrivacy Discover: Newsletters might include details about charities, on-line adverts, and content material funded by exterior events. Should you don’t have an account, we are going to create a visitor account for you on theguardian.com to ship you this text. You possibly can full full registration at any time. For extra details about how we use your information see our Privateness Coverage. We use Google reCaptcha to guard our web site and the Google Privateness Coverage and Phrases of Service apply.after publication promotion“We urgently want funding for good authorized recommendation and for the federal government to cease pushing migrants into hostile, costly authorized processes simply as a charade for Reform,” she stated.Dr Jo Wilding, a researcher and senior lecturer in authorized assist on the College of Sussex and an immigration barrister, stated: ‘This was utterly foreseeable when one small agency with only a few accredited employees arrange workplaces in a number of new areas, together with six severe recommendation desert areas, and began taking up a whole bunch of circumstances.“It ought to have been apparent that weak folks have been being exploited however the Authorized Help Company doesn’t appear to have recognized or recognised that there was an issue. The answer to that is to cease treating authorized assist for essentially the most weak folks as if it was a market, and to pay that cash to a good skilled regulation agency or not-for-profit to do the work.”Rami, a former shopper of Middlesex Legislation Chambers, stated: “It’s good that the federal government has stepped in and closed this agency. However it feels too late, as a result of lots of people like me have already suffered due to the work of this agency. I needed to do my asylum interview with none actual recommendation beforehand, holding my proof in my hand that I had translated on Google as a result of the regulation agency had not executed it. I’ve misplaced plenty of time in my life due to this. I’ve gray hair now when earlier than this I didn’t.“Folks in search of asylum face plenty of issues and a lawyer will help us to get via dangerous conditions. However it is rather troublesome to discover a authorized assist lawyer and many individuals don’t communicate English so can not know which is an efficient regulation agency and which isn’t.”A Authorized Help Company spokesperson stated: “Middlesex Legislation Chambers’ immigration authorized assist contract has been terminated.“Corporations that maintain authorized assist contracts are topic to annual evaluations. These can result in monetary sanctions or, as on this case, contract termination the place requirements should not met.”