Mark Symes

Mark (who is registered with the Bar Council for public access work) provides advice and representation in all areas of immigration, asylum, and human rights law, including European Community free movement law. Rated as a "young and clever" rising star by the Legal 500. He has represented clients in every court from the Tribunal to the Supreme Court and European Court of Human Rights, and deals with work ranging from business immigration and entry clearance representations and appeals, to refugee and criminal deportation cases. He sits as a Judge of the First Tier Tribunal and is a Visiting Fellow at the Refugee Law Initiative, School of Advanced Study, - University of London. He has particular expertise in appeals beyond first instance level having spent eight years specialising in higher advocacy at the Refugee Legal Centre and is very well known to the Senior Immigration Judiciary at Field House (in June 2011 he was invited to address the judiciary on behalf of Claimant lawyers in an expert seminar on Country Guidance). His business awareness from being a company director of leading immigration training company HJT Training makes him a good choice for commercial immigration advice.

He has a flourishing judicial review practice, specialising in refugee, subsidiary protection and human rights issues, though frequently extending to all kinds of public law challenges to the Home Office decision making, including the withdrawal and suspension of licences for educational establishments. He also conducts compliance and regulatory work, and has worked for the Law Society, Office for the Immigration Services Commissioner, and with individual law firms challenging Legal Services Commission decision making.

He is particularly interested in the European dimension of international protection, and arguments based on the Qualification, Procedures and Reception Directives, and on the Charter of Fundamental Rights; and in exclusion from refugee status and subsidiary protection. He is a member of UNHCR's pro bono panel of advocates.

Mark has also advised several solicitors' firms on contractual disputes with the Legal Services Commission (LSC). His experience of having been a solicitor working under the LSC contract is especially useful in this regard.