DLA Piper has long helped vulnerable immigrant and refugee clients and their families find safety, using technological solutions to respond efficiently to global humanitarian challenges. Most recently, we’ve responded to the crises in Afghanistan and Ukraine. Both crises have highlighted the urgent need people displaced by conflict have for fast, and accurate legal advice.
Our pro bono lawyers have created a technology-based service that gives displaced people access to legal information and advice. It has become one of the main portals through which Afghans and Ukrainians can access legal advice and information about gaining access to the UK.
Our pro bono, Legal Project Management and Legal Technology teams built the portal together. It uses automation techniques to triage inquiries and upload vital information rapidly, creating unique and secure records as requests come in. We used the portal to provide advice to over 5,000 Afghans and their families between August 2021 and February 2022.
We’re now using this portal as part of the Ukraine Advice Project, which was set up by a team of solicitors and barristers at the start of the conflict to address the urgent need for immigration advice and support to Ukrainians wishing to come to the UK or move family there.
Working with the Ukraine Advice Project team, we drew up a detailed guide on the new visa schemes available to fleeing Ukrainians. These resources have allowed over 200 volunteer lawyers from DLA Piper, Hogan Lovells and Eversheds Sutherland without an immigration or asylum background to provide Ukrainians with initial information about UK immigration policies. For more complex queries, we are able to refer on to a group of over 500 volunteer immigration specialists.
So far, we have assisted over 2500 Ukrainians and their families and are currently receiving up to 100 new queries every day. We have been able to assist people such as Joana*, a young Ukrainian woman who was here in the UK on a visitor’s visa visiting her boyfriend when the conflict broke out. She wrote to us very distressed because her visitor’s visa was about to expire but she did not feel it was safe to back. She was understandably confused by the online guidance and didn’t know what to do. One of our lawyers helped her to apply for a visa under the Ukraine family scheme in March and by early April she wrote to us to say that she had been granted the visa.
The project will continue to adapt, so we can continue supporting Ukrainians as they arrive in the UK and start to rebuild their lives.