Gulbenkian Andonian Solicitors

Founded in 1985, Gulbenkian Andonian Solicitors is a London law firm that  specialises in immigration law. It also provides other services such as:

• Family Law
• Employment Law
• Civil Litigation
• Property Law
• Notary Public

When it comes to the personal immigration practice, it is built on one clear idea: use the law to keep people and families together in the UK. The founders of the firm saw early that immigration and human rights needed serious, specialist representation, and not merely consigned to a side practice. Forty years on, the firm remains the firm clients can go to when other immigration solicitors have either failed them or feel their case is too complex to take on.

Who we are

Gulbenkian Andonian Solicitors is a top-tier immigration and human rights practice recognised by The Legal 500 as a leading firm for immigration, human rights, appeals, and overstay work. The firm is best known for contentious immigration rather than routine visa processing. Human rights are the core of the practice. That is the lens for every strategy, from fresh applications to judicial review.

What we do best

This is not a firm that only files clean, first-time applications. The typical case involves one or more refusals, a client who does not neatly meet Home Office requirements, and who may have received poor previous advice.

Gulbenkian Andonian Solicitors is the team that can step in at this point.

In many refused cases, the firm will recast the matter as a fresh application with an embedded human rights appeal, rather than simply chasing the last path taken. Where necessary, the team runs judicial review to challenge unlawful Home Office decisions. The firm’s speciality is securing leave to remain on human rights grounds for people who would otherwise fall through the gaps. That includes high-profile asylum claims, politically exposed clients, and cases involving Interpol Red Notices.

The internal rule is simple: if there is a lawful, rights-based route, the firm will work to find it and fight for it. If there is not, the client is told clearly. Clients are protected from wasting money and time on hopeless or cosmetic strategies. That direct, pragmatic advice is part of the value.

The clients we serve

The ideal client is middle class, reasonably well educated and determined not to give up. They are not ultra wealthy. They are professionals, workers, parents, and students who can pay privately and want maximum value from their spend. Many arrive after refusals. Many have already been told “no” elsewhere.

For these clients, Gulbenkian Andonian Solicitors is positioned as the Waitrose of immigration law: serious, rights focused, tenacious, formidably intelligent, and on their side when it matters most. The firm also acts for politically exposed people and others in sensitive asylum or human rights cases where both risk and scrutiny are high.

How we differ from other immigration firms

In a crowded London immigration market, Gulbenkian Andonian stands apart from boutique firms.

• Most firms offer broad personal and business immigration services with a city-facing footprint. Gulbenkian Andonian is narrower and deeper, with a sharper focus on human rights, refusals, appeals and judicial review.
• Most firms lean into volume and corporate brand names. Gulbenkian Andonian leans into complex individual and family cases, as well as high-stakes human rights and asylum work.
• Most firms focus on transactional sponsor licences, Skilled Worker, and business compliance. Gulbenkian Andonian is built around courtroom and tribunal work, long residence, rights-based routes, and public law challenges.

Others sell breadth and speed. Gulbenkian Andonian owns a specialist space: the firm that takes the hard human rights cases other firms do not want.

The calibre of the team

The firm’s biggest asset is the calibre of its staff. Senior lawyers are consistently recognised in independent directories. They have acted in precedent-setting cases, run complex appeals, and led important judicial review challenges. They also train and oversee a team that is comfortable with complexity as standard, not as an exception.

Clients benefit from strategic thinking at partner level, careful case building, and honest advice on prospects. Files are prepared with tribunal or court in mind from day one, with human rights arguments properly developed and evidence built to match. This is work done for the outcome, not for optics.

What we stand for

Gulbenkian Andonian stands for three things:

• Human rights at the centre of immigration work.
• Hard cases welcomed, not avoided.
• Best value for money through clear judgment, not false hope.

The firm is proud that, because of this work, families in the UK can gather around the table at Christmas who would otherwise be separated. That is the real measure of success.

Senior lawyers with decades of experience lead the team, including founders Dr Bernard Andonian and Paul Gulbenkian, who as Immigration Law Judges, have helped shape UK immigration and human rights law over many years. They are backed by a tight-knit group of dedicated solicitors and caseworkers who live and breathe complex immigration: refusals, overstays, long residence, human rights claims, and multi-stage appeals.

Based in central London, Gulbenkian Andonian Solicitors is one of the UK’s leading specialist immigration, human rights and nationality practices, acting for businesses on various matters including the full spectrum of the points-based system as well as individuals in personal immigration matters. Civil litigation, family, corporate and employment law are also specialisms.

The firm: Founded in 1985 in Kensington and now operating from offices in Holborn, the firm is a specialist immigration practice which has experienced great growth in its business immigration practice. It is recognised as one of the leading immigration practices in the UK across the last 38 years since its foundation.

Very few firms specialising in the field of Immigration, Asylum, Nationality and Human Rights can boast of;

• having 38 years of experience
• being founded by long-serving Immigration Judges
• submitting approximately 4,500 successful applications to date
• overseeing over 3,000 cases in litigation in this area of law
• being trusted by numerous media outlets for expert opinion
• receiving more than 40 judicial compliments in written judgments/determination in the last 3 years alone
• carrying out over 240 appeals in-house in the last 3 years alone
• having a proven track record at the Court of Appeal and above

The firm acts for company and commercial clients on business immigration matters and has UK football clubs playing in the Football League, leading care homes, medium to large pharmacies, tobacco companies and large restaurant franchises among its clientele. The firm also deals with investors, innovators, business persons and other individuals across the spectrum of the UK’s points-based system.

The immigration department is led by Dr Bernard Andonian (former Immigration Judge) and Dave Vasoodaven, two of the most experienced immigration practitioners in this country, specialising in all aspects of UK immigration law with a particular emphasis on immigration litigation. Dr Bernard Andonian  sat as a part-time judge of the First-Tier Tribunal (IAC) and calls on more than 35 years as an experienced solicitor in this field. Dave Vasoodaven is an experienced practitioner whose practical knowledge in the subject is broad, and he has extensive experience in immigration litigation where he has dedicated his legal career to assisting individuals as well as businesses of all sizes to meet their immigration objectives. In particular, Dave Vasoodaven’s business pedigree has ensured that the firm has attracted a diverse clientele striking a balance between business immigration and individual immigration.

The firm has always attracted high calibre individuals to join the legal team. In this regard we are proud to have both Christine and Shazaib joining us recently. Apart from legal knowledge they both are versatile with wealth of experience gained working in other fields.

The firm’s immigration litigation practice is extensive. Mr Fadi Farhat heads up the appeals and public law department where it has seen unprecedented success since he joined us in 2015 and his in-depth knowledge has been vital to the firm’s success. His well pleaded grounds of claim and in-house advocacy continue to receive judicial praise. Under Mr Farhat, the firm seeks to handle matters (in terms of drafting and pleading) in-house from beginning to end. Mr Farhat also handles the firm’s advocacy at tribunal level. For example, Judge NMK Lawrence on 29th August 2018 stated in a written determination;

“…Mr Farhat approached the appeal in the most professional manner, in a manner any ‘officer of the court’ should.”

“One does not see representatives of his calibre in this jurisdiction often. I am grateful to him”

Over the course of the last year, the firm has also seen to several injunctions preventing removal including out-of-hours applications to the duty judge. The firm also has a prominent public law practice in the High Court in relation to business immigration including high-profile challenges to the revocation of sponsor licences.

Types of work undertaken: The firm undertakes work across the whole spectrum of immigration, human rights, asylum and nationality law (where it has even handled applications sensitive to national security). The firm prides itself on the successes that it has achieved over the years and the ground-breaking cases that are attributed to its endeavours. The firm is renowned for a number of successful decisions of the High Court such as Shah and Islam (in the House of Lords) and Baumbast and Rolet (European Court of Justice) which broke new legal ground on issues of asylum and European law respectively. The firm’s immigration litigation practice is extensive and due to its success in the handling of human rights appeals, deportation appeals, removal and detention matters, the firm receives frequent instructions in these areas of law.