How it works
As an experienced immigration lawyer, I offer consultations designed to provide tailored advice for your situation.
If you’re a new client and uncertain about the best course of action, I offer an initial session that includes a 20 to 30-minute case review by a MyVisa® Immigration Lawyer, followed by 10 to 15 minutes of personalised advice from me.
For more complex matters, you can book an extended consultation to ensure all your concerns are addressed.
This service allows you to make an informed decision about how we can assist you with your immigration needs.
I help apply for all Australian visas. The first step is to have plan. Your next visa is unlikely to be your last!
We will help you decide what to do next after you receive a visa refusal notification. Should you appeal? Should you re-lodge? Can you start again at all? Is a new application as well as an appeal the best way forward?
In most cases, you’ll receive a “Notice of Intention To Consider Cancellation” prior to your visa being cancelled. If it is cancelled, then it’s likely that other bridging visas you hold will also be cancelled. We’ll help you decide immediately whether you should appeal the visa cancellation. As you will hold no visa immediately after the time your visa is cancelled, we can help lodge an appeal and make an application for a bridging visa until such time as the appeal is heard. If your visa is cancelled under the character provisions in the Migration Act, we can help decide what steps to take next with these so-called section 501 cancellations.
If your visa is refused or cancelled while you are onshore (inside Australia) you’ll most likely have an opportunity to make an application to appeal the decision. Applications for review of a decision are typically required to be made within 7 days of a cancellation and within 21 days of the visa refusal. We can lodge and manage visa appeals to the AAT for you urgently, professionally and with confidence. (The AAT was previously called the MRT).
Most appeals lodged after visa refusal decisions are reviewable in the Migration & Refugee Division (MRD) of the AAT. Some protection visa decisions are reviewed on the papers (without a hearing) by the Immigration Assessing Authority (IAA). Character related refusals are most often heard in the General Division of the AAT. We have 20 years of experience preparing, lodging and appearing in appeals in all these jurisdictions, but also in further appeals resulting from these decisions. Such further appeals are made to the Federal Circuit Court and the Federal Court of Australia.
We get to know your circumstances and the unique aspects of your matter. We then draft forms and submissions on your behalf, putting the very best arguments about your application forward and addressing any negative aspects of your case in a full, frank and professional manner.
After checking with you and taking on board your feedback, we get to a point where we are confident in making a formal lodgment of an application. This is usually to Australia’s Department of Home Affairs (the Department is the authority that grants permission to enter or stay in Australia), but it could be to the Minister, Court or Tribunal too.
Finally, we communicate and follow up with the Department about the progress of your case. We are the buffer between you, the visa applicant and sponsor on the one hand and the DHA case officer on the other hand. Our legal representation as your immigration attorneys gives you breathing space. We protect our clients from unnecessary delays or unfair or legally inappropriate immigration decisions of errant case officers. Let us protect you.
We get to know your circumstances and the unique aspects of your What is important in every step of that process is that your communication with a decision-maker persuades them (as quickly as possible) to make a decision in your favour. In order to do this, the submission better be succinct! It must help the decision-maker rather than cause them grief. This includes you being disciplined enough not to give them unnecessary material. Decision-makers need just enough material to decide favourably. Forcing them to read unnecessary material is not smart matter. We then draft forms and submissions on your behalf, putting the very best arguments about your application forward and addressing any negative aspects of your case in a full, frank and professional manner.
You should have succinct submissions that will not, in some cases, give the department “rope with which to hang you”. Superfluous additional materials can raise issues that are not directly relevant to the core issues but could raise questions prejudicial to your application. Today I peruse the submissions of many practitioners in the migration advice industry with the view of identifying legal errors, exploring opportunities for appeal, or seeking remedies for clients from agents who have deliberately or inadvertently let their clients down. matter. We then draft forms and submissions on your behalf, putting the very best arguments about your application forward and addressing any negative aspects of your case in a full, frank and professional manner.
I am astonished by some of the unnecessary complexity inherent in many submissions. Many advisors fall into the trap of believing that longer more complex submissions are better submissions.
The view that longer submissions are more compelling “better” submissions or that longer submissions represent better value for money for clients is too often held by laypersons, but it is a view that is ill-conceived.
The only thing that one needs to consider when writing a submission is whether or not your client’s point is advanced. The critical factor that could lead to a longer bundle is the quantity and the length of each document that is referenced, in your otherwise succinct argument.
You must have a very succinct statement (letter) as to why a favourable decision should be made and indeed can be made quickly by the decision-maker, because of the submission provided.
You should have a chronology that lists a series of relevant events in your immigration journey. This is usually a three-column table. In the first column state the date. In the second column state the event. In the third column add comments as to why this event is relevant and what supporting material (attached) relates to this event.
The chronology should be followed by relevant supporting documents (with an index) which support the chronology that you are making. Each supporting document should be labelled (for example “A”) and mentioned in the chronology.
The entire submission should be nothing more than this. Be aware of the lawyer who puts in submissions that are overly complicated or submissions muddied with volumes of material.