When should you instruct/use a lawyer

Without sort of giving a list, there's no right or wrong answer. A lot of that will depend on your own personal circumstances. It will depend on your own abilities, your own intellect, but also in terms of using a lawyer. I appreciate that. Generally, lawyers are quite an expensive thing to be spending money on. There is, of course, the possibility of going to legal aid lawyers. Legal aid over the years has unfortunately become quite limited in its scope, so there's not much availability and certainly not the same as for many years before.

The earlier you see a lawyer, the less chance there is of something going wrong. Even if you're confident, even if you can become a pseudo lawyer, if you can search for something on Google, if you have that initial consultation at the outset, where you can see a lawyer, is what we effectively, it's a consultation where you speak to a lawyer and you get that immigration advice or advice in any field. Getting that initial advice should give you an understanding of whether you need to continue using a lawyer. You can go and do it yourself, but that initial meeting will give you more information. You can then decide from that initial meeting. Do I need further help? Can I go and do this myself? Is this something that doesn't in fact require initial further information? One of the most important factors to think about, especially in the context of immigration law, is the risk that's involved with the application that you're doing. Particularly where immigration laws are concerned as they change quite quickly. 

There are some things that get into the newspapers straight away. Rwanda is quite an exciting topic at the moment in terms of debates. The immigration health surcharge and the financial requirements, they made their way into the newspapers and the headlines because It was something that interested people.Subsequently the government made a U turn, that was also something that interested the media. But the frequency at which the rules change and the frequency at which the requirements change is shocking if you're not a lawyer and shocking if you are a lawyer. So you probably will not know if you're going down the right path or not.

The other warning to give, and I'm sure we'll touch upon this in more detail, is not only can you lose a lot of money on your license, but minor mistakes can often lead to the home office accusing clients of being engaged in some form of deception because they've hidden information, simply because they didn't realise they needed to provide it.

When you go down that road, it becomes very difficult to get out of it. So a warning really to remind people that there are quite serious consequences for small mistakes, which is why a lawyer can be helpful. 

-Learnings from Episode 1 of Vera Legal Insights with Jay Gajjar.

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Note: the contents of this Vodcast are just us having a conversation and any responses are for information or educational purposes only, they do not constitute legal advice, the facts of each case vary so if you have a legal query please obtain professional legal advice valid to your individual circumstances. Vera, the host or the guest would not be liable for any damage or loss caused.