Need a recommendation immigration lawyer

So, the Daughter is here as a dependent direct family member of an EU citizen. EU resident card issued by Home Office is in hand. Pre-settled status has been granted by the Home Office.  One of the conditions of being an adult child who is a dependent direct family member is that she requires my financial support to meet her essential needs. I don't have to meet all of them, or most, just some. So she can do a little work, but not much - not more than a few hours a week - until she gets "settled" status in 3 more years.

We need to know if University financial aid is one of those classes of excepted funds that do not count towards any of the above. If she were provided with a stipend by the University to help cover research, travel, and some living costs while pursuing a PhD, would that be "counted" or "not counted" as income by the Home Office? 

As it's critically important that the information we proceed upon is correct, I need a recommendation for a good immigration lawyer who is familiar with how the Home Office treats EU citizens in this type of scenario. Can you recommend someone good? It is somewhat urgent. Thanks.

Start with Medivisas if you don’t want to just talk to the University’s International Affairs department.

Thanks. The University's people are beyond clueless. She's talked to several people on a related topic, and gotten wildly different info back from each one. We need a serious lawyer. Will check Medivisas out.

Edit - I've sent Medivisa an email to set up a consultation. In the meantime, I tried the EU advice service and this is what their lawyer says, in part:

Under current law in the UK, your daughter is entitled to receive funding from the University where she proposes to do her PhD. Her dependence on you must exist at the time that she seeks to join you in the UK from the country in which she was living before her move to the UK. The Commission is very clear on this in its Communication of 2009 on Directive 2004/38/EC stating as follows:

In order to determine whether family members are dependent, it must be assessed in the individual case whether, having regard to their financial and social conditions, they need material support to meet their essential needs in their country of origin or the country from which they came at the time when they applied to join the EU citizen (i.e. not in the host Member State where the EU citizen resides). (paragraph 2.1.4) - https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2009:0313:FIN:EN:PDF

Therefore, it appears that the UK cannot invalidate her residence based on the fact that she receives funding towards her PhD studies.

However, your daughter s situation may be affected by the departure of the UK from the EU. As you know, on 29 March 2017, the UK submitted notification of its intention to withdraw from the EU pursuant to Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU). Following the most recent vote on the Withdrawal Agreement in the House of Commons in the UK yesterday, the situation is that the UK will withdraw from the EU and become a third country on 31st October 2019. EU law remains fully applicable to the UK until that day.


Fingers are crossed. Toes are crossed. Eyes are crossed...

I don't know the answer to your query, but I DO know that a PhD stipend can be used to meet the income requirement for a spouse visa. The requirement is a bit lower than the 18.600 as it isn't taxed or something. The income requirement for spouse visas was set presuming financial independence...

Yep, it's non-taxable income. (In the UK - if she can accept it it would be taxable in the USA, however. How perverse is that!)
Hopefully the lawyer's will get back to us early next week, as we've heard nothing today.

So, while it's very early yet and they probably haven't even read my inquiry, I've decided to do a "Plan B" on the lawyer thing.

I wrote to a MP up here in Scotland who is also the Minister of Higher Education and asked if he could either get us answers for our questions or direct us to someone who can answer them.

In more reading of the Scots higher ed residency regulations, there is one in another sections that says a student over 25 would be considered independent. But as the Daughter isn't supposed to work here she can't be independent. And she's on an EU-dependent card so she's supposed to be treated as EU. So it's probably this one regulation we're going to do  the dance on. Will wait to see what we hear from all sources.

Annnnnd, they bounced it back. "Go through the Uni." 

So, I wrote to Medivisas last week asking if our list of questions were things they could address, and asking the cost of a telephone consultation. I've heard nothing. Tonight I'm not able to get their website to work at all.

I wonder if anyone has their contact info? Email address, phone, physical address, or website? www.medivisas.com isn't coming up, and the email address I had off of the web page I had found last week was info@medivisas.com 

Thanks

Have you tried calling?

I was trying to check their website to get a phone number to call and the website won't load. Tried in the Avast browser, and also the Firefox browser. That's why I was asking if someone might have their contact info? 

The website was working when I got the email address off of it last week. Or at least, I assume it's the correct firm as that's the one that came up in the google search for immigration law in London.

This is what Google gives me:
Address: 156 Blackfriars Rd, London SE1 8EN, UK
Phone: +44 20 7953 3090

Hopefully that works!

I was trying to check their website to get a phone number to call and the website won't load. Tried in the Avast browser, and also the Firefox browser. That's why I was asking if someone might have their contact info? 

The website was working when I got the email address off of it last week. Or at least, I assume it's the correct firm as that's the one that came up in the google search for immigration law in London.

Yeah, it's not loading for me either (Safari) but their Facebook page is still up- MediVisas UK LLP. You could message them via FB, email  info@medivisas.com or call 020 7953 3090

Thanks, that's the email I used. We're on the way out of town now, but I'll phone them tomorrow.
(We don't use Facebook, so that's not an option.)

I was wanting to be sure that was the correct company, too. You can never be sure, with the internet, if what comes up is what you intend to find - if they use a specific spelling, or a .net or .org instead of .com, or something like LLP in the actual address, etc., you can get an entirely different entity with a very similar name, in a general search.

Yea, their website is back up!

Did you hear back/are they still in business? I'm thinking about using them for my citizenship application, so that I can finally get that sorted.

Did you hear back/are they still in business? I'm thinking about using them for my citizenship application, so that I can finally get that sorted.

Citizenship is sooooooo easy.  Absolutely no need.