Add son on to the visa

[Guest McCanns]

Hi all, Hope someone can help. We received our visa letter on the 22nd December . Our 22yr old son wants to come now and complete his legal training out in Oz so will be a full time student and dependent. What is the best way to get him out there, as we are to late to have his name added to the visa? Should we take him out on a visitor visa and then apply once we are out there for a last remaining family member visa? Or should we apply before we go. We don't want to leave the country without him. we have time as he doesn't graduate uni till June, and we are planning to go out there start of August. Any suggestions would be greatly recieved.

Neal

[Alan Collett]

Hello Neal.

 

Was your son included on your visa application as a non-migrating dependent? Was he not included on the basis he isn't a dependent?

 

Either way he cannot now be added to your visa application as your visas have now been granted (I think - your posting isn't clear on this point). Your son may therefore be looking at a remaining relative visa - but he will need a sponsor and an assurer:

http://www.immi.gov.au/migrants/family/115/how-the-visa-works.htm

 

I recommend a discussion with an advisor who is experienced in such matters; feel able to telephone my office in Southampton after Xmas on 023 80 488777 (we are closed on Weds 27th, so maybe call on Thursday 28th, and ask for Lorraine Beaumont). Phil Olsen on this forum should also be able to advise.

 

Best wishes for a Happy Xmas.

[Guest Gollywobbler]

Hi Neal

 

Having trained as a solicitor in the UK, I then went to Oz to visit my younger sister, who had by then moved to Perth. I had no serious intention of moving to Australia myself - frankly, Perth is far too remote for my liking - but my sister's M-i-L was a legal secretary in Perth. As they all do, she assumed that I wanted to move to Oz too, so she badgered me into meeting her boss (who was only a High St type of solicitor, which was not the sort of work I had been trained for, as he readily realised. ) He gave me the names of a couple of the Big-Name commercial property solicitors in Perth - I was doing commercial property in the City of London - and it would have been ill-mannered and ungrateful not to ring them, so I did and met them for lunch.

 

We discussed the commercial property market in Perth - not wildly exciting compared to stuff like the Channel Tunnel which was being handled in London at the time and nearly all the big firms had a piece of that action -just as the insurance and re-insurance litigation firms in the City now all have a slice of the fall-out from the World Trade Centre each.

 

The Perth solicitors both said they could organise a suitable visa for me without difficulty, and they said that I would not have to re-qualify in order to practice in WA. I gathered that I would have to do some sort of year long conversion process, which sounded like an Australian-qualified solicitor supervising my output for a year to make sure that I was applying up to date Australian Land and Planning Law. They assured me that the whole thing, including the visa, would be dead straightforward.

 

Because I had already done a degree then done Pt II of the CPEs at the College of Law, plus I had done my stint as an Articled Berk (now called a Training Contract) and had been admitted to the Roll in the UK, I gathered that there would be no further exam-hoops to jump through if I moved to Oz. (I had SWORN that I was never going to sit for another exam as long as I lived, and apart from a couple of inconsequential yotting 'qualifications', done just for fun, I never have!)

 

If your son graduates in June 2007, I am not sure whether he would have to sit for any sort of Part II exams out in Oz. I presume that they have a system of post-graduate on-the-job training, akin to Articles for a solicitor or pupillage for the Bar.

 

What I am wondering (and I am merely guessing) is whether your son would be able to get one of the big firms of solicitors or barristers in Oz to sponsor him for a skilled visa for whatever he would have to do next by way of pre-qualifying training? I got the impression that the two I spoke with were talking about some kind of employer-sponsored permanent visa for me. I didn't get round to investigating the proposed visa because I had decided to leave my sister's territory alone anyway.

 

Blake Waldron Dawson are one of the big-name Australian firms of solicitors, and Freehills are another. I don't know the names of any of the barristers, though. Also, have a look at the websites for the big London firms such as Linklaters & Alliance, Watson Farley & Williams, Richards Butler and so on. (Tell Google Legal Top Ten + City of London.) By now, some of them might have offices in Oz, and if so, they might actually be able to train your son in Oz for UK as well as Australian qualification. If he were my son, I think I would try to look into this possibility, because if he becomes Australian-qualified only but decides that he does not want to stay in Oz, I've a feeling he might have to re-qualify in order to practice in England & Wales. (The Law Society ought to know and if they don't, ask the College of Law in Guildford, I would suggest.)

 

If your son wanted to do a year long post graduate Diploma in Australian Law or something along those lines, I have heard that the Faculty of Law at the University of Sydney is said to be the best in Australia. Sydney is to die for for a youngster in the Law, even if the wrinklies don't want to live there themselves (indeed, better still if they don't!) The most exciting legal work in Oz is probably done in Sydney and the Harbour is one of the most beautiful places on Earth. I was 16 when I went to Sydney for 3 weeks and became smitten with Maquarie Uni, up on a hill overlooking the Harbour. However, 'twas not to be because Dad decided not to move us all to Oz in the end. My sister went there on her own, later.

 

Another option might be - just might be - for your son to get a Working Holiday Maker visa for a year and spend the year in a suit, doing two six-month stints with two Law firms out there. (A terrible waste of a WHM visa, in my view, because if I had ever got one I'd have headed straight to the Whitsundays for the sailing and diving, and done any old job just to earn the odd bean, but this might be the way into a big-name Oz Law firm for your son all the same, I suspect. Doubtless one of them could then sponsor him for a permanent visa thereafter - and he would probably be better-paid than most WHMs in the meanwhile!)

 

I'm sorry this is all a bit vague, because I didn't investigate any of it closely myself, but it might help to give your son some ideas to consider and names to get started with.

 

Best wishes for Christmas and the New Year, and please wish your son all the best from me for his finals in June.

 

Gill