Barrister Ahmed A Malik
Head of Practice & Direct Access Barrister
Ahmed has an established legal practice with wealth of experience in several areas of law. He practiced both as a legal executive and a solicitor for over 18 years before becoming a barrister in 2008 to fulfill his long term ambition as a higher Court advocate. He is a general civil practitioner but specializes in Children & Family, Property, Immigration and Regulatory proceedings against professionals. He is a realist with a good appetite for challenges. He is friendly, approachable, easily accessible and conscientious about his professional obligations towards both his lay and professional clients.
Areas of Practice
Landlord & Tenant
Ahmed has gained huge expertise in representing both landlord and tenants in many aspects of commercial and residential tenancy disputes, including possession, dilapidations, unlawful eviction, harassment, disrepair, rent repayment order and others. He also represented both the landlord and tenants in social housing sector on different issues.
Divorce and Financial Remedies
Ahmed is regularly instructed on complex financial remedy cases and disputes between unmarried partners after separation. He has a high success record and often supersedes client’s expectations. He is pragmatic and honest. He has considerable experience in the following:
- Financial remedy / division of assets
- TOLATA cases
- Co-ownership claims between co-habiting partners
- Co-ownership/trust claims involving third parties (typically parents)
- Third party interventions in divorce proceedings.
Family & Children
Ahmed has expertise on fact finding hearings and trials in relation to non-molestation and child arrangement orders, care proceedings, adoption and other cases under the Children Act. He is a strong advocate and his submissions are often referred to as robust and incisive.
Immigration & Nationality
Ahmed has been practicing Immigration laws since 1990 and is able to offer the best advice in all types of immigration, asylum and nationality issues using his expert practical knowledge. He frequently advises on complex visa related issues, drafts grounds of appeals and represent clients before the First Tier and the Upper Tribunals. He also settles grounds for Judicial Reviews challenging the decisions of the relevant authorities and represents clients at the High Court and Upper Tribunals.
Trusts, Wills & Probate
Ahmed has considerable experience in representing clients in disputed wills and trusts and regularly advises on contentious probate cases.
General Civil
Ahmed is an all-rounder civil litigation advocate and regularly appears for clients in the High Court and County Court. He has expertise in all stages of litigation, from drafting initial statements of case to appearing at hearings, trials, and appeal.
He has also worked on regulatory matters- represented solicitors before the SDT, Nurses before the Nursing & Midwifery Council and a doctor before the General Medical Council. Ahmed has also appeared before the First-tier Tribunal (social security appeals) and Employment Tribunals.
Direct Access & conducting litigation
Ahmed is authorised to undertake direct access work and to conduct litigation, where he is instructed directly by a member of the public rather than a solicitor. He is very considerate and often accepts instructions on reduced fee from those of moderate means, as he is passionate about facilitating access to justice.
He is multi-lingual and can speak Arabic, Bengali, English, Hindi and Urdu languages.
Mediation
Ahmed is a qualified and experienced mediator for civil and commercial disputes. He has represented parties on numerous mediation sessions and settled disputes before proceeding to the costly Court trials.
Generally, he works hard to settle cases during pre-hearing skillful negotiations saving clients substantial costs.
Ahmed is a member of Family Law Bar Association (FLBA) and the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators.
Mohammad Jahirul Islam
Direct Access Barrister
His main practice areas are Immigration and Family.
IMMIGRATION
He has been representing clients at the immigration tribunals since 2007 on behalf of solicitors’ firms. He makes thorough preparation for appeals including skeleton arguments and robustly represent clients at the hearing often achieving excellent results. On numerous occasions, he has had the clients’ appeals allowed by the Tribunal instantly.
He also assists client with submitting all types of applications (leave to remain/enter/ILR etc.) to the Home Office and for entry clearance from abroad. Over the years, he has gained considerable expertise in complex immigration, asylum, human rights and nationality matters.
FAMILY LAW
He deals with cases in all aspects of family law, having a thorough knowledge of both procedural and substantive laws. He represents clients at child arrangement, non-molestation and financial remedies proceedings.
He is happy to assist clients in fact-finding hearings in which he is able to identify the issues thorough cross-examination of witnesses.
In the financial remedy hearing, he is able to represent clients in all stages to bring the best possible outcome. He also pursues pre-hearing discussion tactfully to reach early settlement of the cases, minimising legal costs for his clients.
INTERNATIONAL
He is an advocate of Bangladesh supreme court and is able to assist client on cases involving international trade disputes with Bangladeshi companies and other legal matters under Bangladeshi laws.
OTHERS
He is authorised by the Bar Standard Board to accept cases under direct access (without solicitors) and conduct litigation on behalf of clients in all stages.
Mr Islam undertakes pro bono works through Advocates sometimes. He received the following feedback in one of the cases as follows:
"I have just received a very grateful email from Ms xxxxx. Thank you again for your support in this case, from her email I assume there was a positive outcome and this would not have been as easy if it were not for you volunteering your time." Caseworker - Advocate