We write in response to your article ‘Immigration bar slams solicitors over “poor” standards’.
Although Garden Court Chambers has the largest team of immigration barristers of any chambers in the country, we were not consulted by the authors of the Bar Standards Board report referred to in your article. We do not share the opinion, attributed by your article to a unanimous immigration bar, that solicitors repeatedly ‘provide poor-quality work and fail to deliver the appropriate level of care’. There are solicitors of whom that is undoubtedly true.
However, our experience is that, more often than not, solicitors provide a high quality of service and care to often vulnerable clients in an increasingly hostile environment.
David de Menezes, director of communications and marketing, Garden Court Chambers, London WC2
