Ms Anita de Atouguia > Doyle Clayton > London, England > Lawyer Profile
Doyle Clayton Offices
ONE CROWN COURT
CHEAPSIDE
LONDON
EC2V 6LR
England
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Ms Anita de Atouguia
Work Department
Business Immigration
Position
Partner and Head of Business Immigration
Career
Anita practises both business and personal immigration and is the firm’s Head of Immigration.
Anita has specialised in immigration law since 2000 years and is one of the UK’s leading immigration experts. She joined Doyle Clayton in 2012 to set up its Immigration service, having worked in the immigration practices of some of the UK’s best known full service law firms including CMS and Lewis Silkin.
Throughout her career, Anita has helped organisations (including law firms) set up and expand in the UK – getting the licences, sponsorships, visas and permissions needed to enable the people that they want as well as their families to work, live and also study in Britain.
She has also helped many well-known entrepreneurs, investors, actors, celebrities and sports people as well their relations (including foreign husbands/wives/spouses, civil partners, fiance(es), proposed civil partners, children and adult dependants) and personal advisors come to the UK, extend their stay – with many remaining permanently (Indefinite Leave to Remain), be naturalised and become British citizens and UK passport holders.
Anita has excellent multi-tasking skills and a keen eye for detail which enables her to provide her clients with a rounded service, including providing strategic advice on complex immigration issues. Her considerable network of contacts within the UK Home Office (built up from personally developing the relationships with UKVI over the years) ensures that, where required, clients have an expedited service and first-class treatment.
Under Anita’s leadership the firm’s Immigration team has built a reputation for its “refreshingly straightforward” approach and is regularly described as “excellent” and “outstanding in a really complex area”, and as having “more professional and expert staff than other firms”.
Doyle Clayton Partner – November 2015 – Present
Doyle Clayton Business Immigration Solicitor, Associate, Senior Associate – October 2012 – November 2015
Lewis Silkin LLP Associate, Senior Associate – March 2007 – May 2012
CMS Cameron McKenna Global Business Immigration Paralegal – April 2006 – March 2007
Dual qualified: Admitted Advocate of High Court of South Africa, and qualified Solicitor of England and Wales
Year qualified: 2001 (South Africa); 2008 (England and Wales)
Languages
English, Afrikaans, Portuguese (basic)
Memberships
Immigration Law Practitioners Association (ILPA);
British South African Lawyers Association (BSALA)
Education
University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
Bachelor of Arts (BA); Bachelor of Laws (LLB); Master of Laws (LLM)
Lawyer Rankings
London > Employment > Immigration
Doyle Clayton delivers ‘the high quality of immigration service demanded by their clientele’ in both the routine and more complex immigration mandates. Anita de Atouguia heads the practice, leading primarily in relation to the firm’s business offering, yet with additional significant experience in asylum and human rights immigration issues, she is well-placed to advise clients with their complex matters. Malini Skandachanmugarasan leads in the firm’s personal immigration work, with a track record in cases reliant on Home Office discretion and experience in global mobility for business clients. Alfreda Joubert joined the team from Magrath Sheldrick LLP in April 2023, and has a specific focus on global corporate clients and SMEs across a range of sectors. Also of note are senior associates Adam Cotterill, who has experience handling international adoption and surrogacy cases, Anna Blackenden, who has a sector focus in education, and Elisabeth Kynaston, who has dual immigration and employment law practice.