How Do Immigration Lawyers Help Employers?

When it comes to running their core in-house functions, businesses of all types and scales have more options and flexibility than ever before.  Rather than recruiting all of the expertise needed internally, external service providers and professionals now perform key business functions in a seamless and highly integrated manner, allowing those within the business to focus on their core roles.  External service providers work closely with internal teams taking the time to get to know their client’s employees, business strategies, and business processes, effectively blurring the boundary between resources within the organisation and those outside.  As such, businesses can now gain the best of both worlds, having access to top-level skills and expertise while managing their exposure to cost and risk.  This is of real benefit when it comes to immigration law.  Immigration lawyers understand the minutiae of immigration law and can ensure the global mobility of new and existing staff as and when needed.  So precisely what can an immigration lawyer do for you as an employer?

Immigration law as a service

It is now easier than ever to engage an immigration lawyer on a one-off or retained basis to assist in relation to all matters such as visas, permanent settlement, intra-company transfers, citizenship, or global relocation, including schooling, education, banking.  Immigration lawyers bring the expertise and experience of working with other organisations to your business, ensuring you benefit from real-world best practices. Larger immigration law firms, are also able to ramp up quickly as and when needed if you have an urgent project or requirement which needs attention.

Advising on global mobility and immigration strategy

Businesses around the world understand the importance of global mobility and gaining access to expertise and skills when they are needed.  Indeed, not being able to source suitable resources in a timely manner represents a real risk to a business’s strategy.

To ensure businesses are able to find the staff and skills they need precisely when they are needed, an effective staffing and global mobility strategy is key.  Due to our experience of governmental immigration policies, immigration trends, and knowledge of how other businesses are handling global mobility, we are best placed to advise and steer our client’s recruitment and global mobility strategy.  We are able to give them the benefit of our experience with other small, medium, large, and multi-national companies, ensuring that they can stay ahead of their recruitment needs.

Such a strategy is even more critical for growing businesses.  Businesses experiencing substantial growth need to know they have the ability to recruit the workers they need, including skilled workers and seasonal workers, or to transfer staff from a branch or subsidiary of the same company in another country.

With their expertise, they will help you to plan ahead and anticipate your needs and then put in place a robust model for achieving this.  Knowledge of the current and expected immigration policies in your jurisdiction are key, as are the processes, procedures, and systems you will need to effectively manage the foreign worker recruitment and sponsorship process.

 Managing the day to day immigration process for your organisation

When it comes to the practicalities of immigration law, handling the day to day process of applications, submitting documents, responding to questions from immigration authorities, and dealing with problems before they arise is vital in ensuring that new or transferred foreign workers are available to start work where and when they are needed.  For internal teams, the application process can easily become overwhelming, especially when collating the information and documents required and submitting these in the correct format for multiple cases.  This is the core competence of an immigration lawyer as they are well versed in handling multiple simultaneous, often complex, immigration applications. This will enable your internal team freed up to perform other key business functions with the overhead and stress of dealing with regional immigration authorities.

Immigration lawyers are specialists at pre-empting problems and dealing with them upfront before they are flagged by the immigration authorities.  This then mitigates the chance of refusal and speeds up the whole process.

Another specialism of these lawyers is that they will manage the lifecycle of the immigration process on your behalf.  Securing a visa for a foreign worker is only the start of the process as they may need a new visa if they start a new role or an extension/renewal before their visa expires.  Immigration lawyers can also handle any problems which arise in relation to existing sponsored workers, e.g. if they breach the terms of their visa or do not apply for a visa extension in time.

Dealing with appeals and refusals

Immigration lawyers regularly work with clients to overcome visa application refusals.  In many cases, with the right advice provided in a timely manner, it is possible to quickly overturn a refusal enabling the staff member to gain the visa permission they need to start work.  Having a robust knowledge of the options available in the event of refusal, the optimal course of action to take for any given case, the chance of success for each option, and how to bring a matter to a rapid and successful conclusion takes expertise and experience.

Wrapping up

In the field of immigration law, having a finger on the pulse of the latest developments and understanding the expected changes in immigration law conveys a substantial competitive advantage for our clients.  Expert immigration advisors will always advise you of any process changes you may need to make and how you can take advantage of it.  With an immigration lawyer by your side for the long term, you will be able to utilise the immigration system to maximum effect for your business.