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Duncan Lewis Solicitors’ Wales-based public law team shortlisted for Public Law Team of the Year at Wales Legal Awards 2020 (24 June 2020)

Date: 24/06/2020
Duncan Lewis, Main Solicitors, Duncan Lewis Solicitors’ Wales-based public law team shortlisted for Public Law Team of the Year at Wales Legal Awards 2020

We are delighted to reveal that our Wales-based public law team has been shortlisted for the Public Law Team of the Year at this year’s Wales Legal Awards.

The Wales Legal Awards celebrate excellence in teams practising in and providing services to the legal profession in Wales, and the Public Law Team of the Year award recognises the outstanding performance from a public law team in providing bespoke and tailored advice on the welfare and rights of their clients, in addition to increasing access to justice in Wales.

Headed by director Vinita Templeton, the team is well-established in the area of immigration and public law, specialising in all aspects of asylum, judicial review, and human rights matters, and in the last year has taken on a number of notable and complex matters.

Perhaps the most notable matter has been the initiation of legal action on behalf of eight Commonwealth veterans who claim that the army failed to inform them that they needed to make an immediate application to the Home Office for leave to remain in the UK on discharge. This work has attracted significant media attention all of which Vinita herself has fielded expertly, and is shining a light on the existing ambiguous and discriminatory policies of the Secretary of State in relation to foreign national veterans of the British army. And although the nationwide coverage on these policies is fledgling, Vinita has been working on Commonwealth veteran cases for the last eight years, successfully resolving every case taken on.

The team has also been instrumental in handling cases concerning the Windrush scandal, submitting many applications for clients on a pro bono basis and later securing legal aid to judicial review the refusal decisions. A number of cases have seen incidents of the Home Office refusing to grant the client settlement under the Windrush scheme resulting in the need for the team to launch judicial review proceedings contending that it is arguable that if the Windrush generation are the victims of historic injustice then the effects of that injustice can also impact subsequent generations. In multiple cases the team have been assisting those whose parents are of the Windrush generation.

What makes this shortlisting even more impressive is that the Swansea based team is made up of only three lawyers, Vinita Templeton, consultant solicitor Vanessa Delgado, and trainee solicitor Samuel Bass – a truly small yet mighty team and are the only team in Wales to ranked as a Tier 1 practice for their immigration work in the 2020 edition of The Legal 500.

After winning the Special Recognition Award last year at Wales Legal Awards’ inaugural ceremony we are delighted that the work of our public law team has been specifically recognised, highlighting the work carried out in Wales by the team and the excellence of our services.

Currently the awards ceremony is due to take place in Cardiff on the 11th September however should the Welsh Government’s social-distancing restrictions impact the planned holding of the awards night an alternative ceremony will be held online.
We congratulate the whole team and wish them the best of luck on the night – llongyfarchiadau a phob lwc!


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