Teni Shahiean
Teni Shahiean is the Partner and CEO of the firm. Her wealth of knowledge and experience spanning more than 12 years of Immigration law, and Employment work has meant the firm has a seen rapid growth and a reputation for providing exceptional Immigration advice and services.
Teni has also been ranked by the Legal 500 as a recommended Immigration solicitor and has been highly accredited by the Law Society for her Immigration knowledge and advice through the Law Society Immigration and Asylum Accreditation Scheme.
She specialises in Immigration law and provides advice and representation in all areas of Immigration. She has successfully built her practice in the following areas:
Tier 1 Investor Visas - Tier 1 Entrepreneur Visas - Sole Representative - Tier 2 Sponsorship Licences
Teni specialises in all aspects of corporate and high net worth immigration. She provides a solution-based approach to her business clients with a focus on providing practical, tailored and concise advice.
High Net Worth immigration
Teni has extensive experience in advising wealthy clients on the most suitable visa options available to them to relocate to the UK. She has advised on tier 1 Investor Visas, tier 1 Entrepreneur Visa and Sole representative of overseas Company visa and Innovator/Start-up visa. She also advises on compliance issues during their stay to ensure they continue to meet their requisite visa obligations to enable them to successfully apply for their visa extensions and thereafter indefinite leave to remain.
Corporate immigration
Teni works closely with businesses to advise them on their duties and obligations as a Tier 2 sponsor, including keeping them up to date and compliant with recent changes, conducting mock audits and advising on right to work checks. She helps establish HR systems and processes that monitor migrant activity, advises on any compliance issues and provides the necessary training. By quickly identifying problems and implementing an effective action plan she can help businesses to retain their Sponsorship Licence status.
She advises non-EU client companies that wish to establish a UK presence or relocate to the UK on the most appropriate routes whether this is via the Tier 2 intra company visa, the sole representative visa or through the Entrepreneur route.
Tier 4 Sponsor Compliance
Teni works with education providers to ensure that they remain compliant with their obligations as a Tier 4 sponsor and also assists with crisis management in instances where a Sponsorship Licence has been suspended or revoked. She also provides regular training workshops to ensure that they fully understand and implement their duties as a Tier 4 sponsor.
General Individual Immigration matters
Teni also assists with the immigration needs of individual clients, she has experience in advising on all aspects of individual immigration. She enjoys working on complex matters and relishes applying her knowledge and expertise to reach a positive outcome for clients. She is passionate about reuniting families and therefore applies her knowledge and expertise when working on adult dependent and child sole dependency visa applications to argue persuasively sometimes outside of the rules to successfully obtain entry clearance for clients.
Notable cases
Teni has successfully managed to obtain numerous Tier 1 Entrepreneur Visa approvals without the need for her clients to be interviewed this is testimony to her meticulous presentation and drafting skills and her ability to pay attention to detail.
Sole Representative of an overseas company visa
Teni has successfully managed to obtain sole representative visa for clients based in India, UAE, Russia, China, and Pakistan with complicated immigration histories.
Teni was able to secure a fast turnaround for a sponsorship licence application.
She has also managed to successfully apply for a Sponsorship Licence for a company despite the company having to adhere to a cooling off period.
She has also managed to successfully challenge several Tier 2 Sponsorship Licence revocations.
Education Background
Teni Graduated with a dual degree in Law and Business in 2003 and completed her Legal Practice Course in 2004. Following this she qualified as an experienced Immigration and Employment Solicitor in 2008.
Her talents were recognised and she was recruited by a leading central London Immigration law firm, and owing to her calibre was awarded a Senior Level 2 accreditation in Immigration law by the Law Society. Teni is an active member of the Immigration Law Practitioners Association and the Law Society’s Human Rights Committee where the Law Society’s Human Rights Committee where she regularly contributes to the Law Society’s responses to government proposals and consultations regarding changes to Human Rights legislation and the judicial review process.
As the Managing Partner of the firm with over 12 years’ of experience in Personal Immigration, business immigration, EEA Free Movement, British nationality, Immigration judicial review, Human Rights and Employment Law, she has successfully conducted numerous High Court cases against the Secretary of State for refusing Immigration and Human Rights cases. She has a wealth of knowledge in seeking High Court injunctions against removals of foreign nationals and for detained clients. As an experienced advocate, she has successfully represented clients in front of the Immigration and Asylum Chamber.
Her achievements have been recognised by her peers and she is considered an authority on Immigration matters in the UK. More recently she has been invited to talk shows, panel discussions and to the BBC Two Victoria Derbyshire programmer as an Immigration law expert to discuss the topic of an EU in/out referendum and the consequences of Brexit on Immigration policy in the UK as well as BBC World programme following Brexit.
She has served a wide variety of business immigration clients under the points based system and represented international banks and large restaurant chains in submitting and defending Sponsorship Licence applications, tier 2 applications and Intra Company transfer applications. She has provided legal advice and guidance to employer’s about their responsibilities when employing migrant workers and about maintaining personnel records to prevent civil penalties for employing illegal workers.
Teni has a wealth of experience in Employment Law and is also a member of the Free Representation Unit. She has successfully represented employers and employees for various claims at the employment tribunal and has successfully negotiated settlements. She advises on many aspects of Employment law such as grievance and disciplinary matters, good practice guidance for employers and their human resources department, compromise agreements and claims for unfair dismissal, redundancy, discrimination and various other matters at the employment tribunal.
Teni is also an active member of the Armenian community. Teni has successfully revived the British Armenian Lawyers Association (BALA) which has grown in size and has a large membership list. Teni co-ordinates various events, helps in providing mentoring for law students and runs projects with lawyers within the community through BALA including work with UNHCR in Armenia to help on training the staff on International Refugee Law.
She is fluent in Armenian and has a basic understanding of Farsi.