About the Managing Partner

Alex is accrediated by the Law Society as a specialist in Family law and Children matters and the Family Law Accreditation is a recognised quality standard for family law practitioners.

The accreditation covers all types of family law work except public law Children Act work, which is covered by a separate Children Law Accreditation.

Alex is an experienced Family Solicitor and he is also a Member of Resolution, an organisation whose members are family lawyers and other professionals committed to the constructive resolution of family disputes. Alex follows a Code of Practice that promotes a non-confrontational approach to family problems. Alex has a lot of success stories in which he has encouraged solutions that consider the needs of the whole family – and in particular the best interests of children.

As a result of this impressive profile, Alex was appointed as the Head of the Family Department at the firm he last worked at and within a short space of time  , he has demonstrated amazing client care skills with robust supervision and people management skills. Alex is very approachable and has developed a reputation of having a very good understanding of clients’ needs. He strives to deliver an effective service to his clients and take a sympathetic approach to resolve all issues as quickly as possible, so as not to prolong matters at a sensitive time for his clients.

Alex regularly represent clients at most hearings hence he has a lot of advocacy experience.

Immigration

Alex developed his immigration experience, both private and business immigration at the following firms:

As Managing Partner at Sovereign Solicitors from August 2006 until March 2011

As a Consultant at Augustine Clement Solicitors from 2013 until December 2019

As a Consultant at Universe Solicitors and Alfred James Solicitors from January 2020 to-date

Alex is highly experienced in dealing with all aspects of immigration, both private and business immigration matters. Alex has extensive knowledge in dealing with the following areas: 

Applications from outside the UK 

• Visitors Visa
• Spouse or Fiancée Visa
• Student applications (Tier 4) 

Applications within the U.K. 

• EEA – Permanent Residency
• Naturalisation and Application for British Citizenship
• Article 8 and Private life including Best interest of children (Human Rights applications)
• Leave to remain
• Obtaining settlement via the parent route
• Switching to a work visa
• Over stayers
• Domestic violence route
• Human Rights
• Bail applications
• Deportation

Business Immigration and other Point based system applications

Alex can assist with all forms of work visa including:

Investor Visa (used to be the Entrepreneur visa) Tier 1: for those who want to invest funds in the UK to start a business.

General work visa (Tier 2)
You need to be employed by a licensed sponsor to apply to work in the UK.

Your sponsor checks that you can do the job they are hiring you for and if it qualifies you for a visa. They will then assign you a certificate of sponsorship to prove this.

Health and Care visa (Tier 2) 

Intra-company Transfer visa (Tier 2) 

Minister of Religion visa (Tier 2) 

Sportsperson visa (Tier 2) 

What makes Alex stand out is his ability to offer pragmatic professional advice, provide support tailored to clients’ individual needs as he appreciate that immigration matters can be sensitive and emotional.  Alex maintains his clients’ best interest at all times and do all he can to achieve their desired objectives.

Alex is a brilliant advocate and he represents clients at Court further ensuring continuity and consistency of his first class service. Alex is highly experienced in dealing with appeals to both First-Tier-Tribunals and Higher-Tribunals and this includes appeals, bail applications and Judicial Review matters.

This is another area of law that Alex has impressive expertise and experience in.

Alex’s exposure to asylum matters was when he was at the defunct Refugee Legal Centre (RLC) where he was a Caseworker dealing with asylum and Human Right cases.  Alex worked at RLC from 2000-2002.

This experience gave Alex excellent grounding and knowledge of the full range of immigration, asylum and nationality issues that affect migrants, refugees and asylum seekers and he is therefore able to undertake the full range of immigration and asylum work, such as: asylum, human rights, appeals, Immigration Rules based applications, nationality and judicial review, including appeals to the Court of Appeal. 

Alex has developed cultural and religious awareness and is highly experienced in dealing with multicultural matters.  Alex has successfully obtained Asylum status for clients with complicated asylum and Human Rights issues.

Alex has knowledge and experience of public law actions before the County Court/High Court including challenges involving unlawful detention.

Alex developed a lot of expertise and experience when he was a Senior Crown Prosecutor at the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). Alex was at the CPS from 2004 until 2006 and this was when he left for private practice.

As a Senior Crown Prosecutor (SCP),  Alex prosecuted cases at Croydon, Bromley and Sidcup courts. As a SCP, Alex demonstrated high levels of communication and analytical skills. Delivering justice is a complex pursuit with work that is sometimes emotionally challenging,

Alex prosecuted matters from common assault, assault occasioning actual bodily harm, robbery with multiple defendants and so on.

The criminal experiences provided Alex an added advantage in being able to assist my immigration clients when it comes to matters involving the prosecution of immigration matters, for example:

Part 1 of the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981 (forgery and connected offences).

Section 24A of the Immigration Act 1971 (use of deception to obtain or seek to obtain leave to enter or remain or to secure avoidance, postponement or revocation of enforcement action).

Section 26(1)(d) of the Immigration 1971 Act (falsification of documents).

Sections 4(1) and 6(1) of the Identity Documents Act 2010.

On leaving the CPS, the assistance Alex have offered to clients includes the following: 

Statutory defence was used in the case of a refugee charged with being in possession of a false passport  as Section 31 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 (IAA) provides a statutory defence for refugees committing particular offences, providing they satisfy stated conditions.

Represented a professional client and the client was acquitted of assaulting two police officers in the execution of their duty. It became obvious during cross –X that there were a lot of inconsistencies in the evidence of the police officers.

Successfully challenged financial penalty imposed by the Home Office on clients that have businesses. 

On a personal level, Alex is a keen table tennis player and he plays for local leagues in Croydon, Sutton and Bromley. Alex has been riding a motorbike for many years and he often join other keen riders on the long ride to Hastings during the May Day Bike ride. In fact, a lot of people when describing Alex will say something like “ the guy that rides a big motorbike”

Alex loves playing football whenever circumstances permit and he supports the best team in the UK premiership (Man U) but Alex is happy to accept instructions from others that support other clubs !!!

Alex is married with three children and he spends time with his family when not working, when not riding a motorbike, when not playing table tennis etc.