OTS Solicitors Named as Best Immigration & Family Law Firm 2025 – Southern England in UK Legal Awards
OTS Solicitors has been named the Best Immigration & Family Law Firm 2025 – Southern England in the UK Legal Awards held by SME News. This award makes the hard work seem worthwhile. For potential immigration and family law clients, the award is a backup to all our excellent client reviews.
If you need family or immigration law advice, contact the experts at OTS Solicitors.
Our solicitors provide phone, online and in-person consultations at our offices in central London.
Best immigration & family law firm Southern England
We think OTS Solicitors won the SME News award for being the best immigration and family law firm in Southern England in 2025 because although there are some excellent niche immigration law firms and some caring UK family lawyers, it is rare to find lawyers who specialise in immigration and family law and focus on providing a joined up legal service to clients needing individual or business immigration and family law advice.
OTS Solicitors was founded in 2015, just ten years ago. Initially, a niche immigration law firm, the team found that we were referring many of our immigration law clients to other firms for family law advice. We are sure many of those clients received excellent family law advice, but we identified two problems:
- Our immigration clients trust OTS Solicitors and don’t want to be referred to another law firm for family law advice, and
- When advising international families, it is crucial to understand immigration law. You cannot fully advise on family law options without understanding the impact on visas or settlement plans.
Joined up family and immigration law advice
As a niche immigration law firm, we saw first-hand the need for joined-up family and immigration legal advice.
An individual immigration law client would come to us for a Spouse Visa or a Spouse Visa extension. Sadly, they might subsequently need family law advice on a separation or no-fault divorce. In no-fault divorce proceedings, some lawyers don’t see the need to explore the reasons for the marriage breakdown. In immigration law, the reasons for the relationship may make the difference between a spouse being able to settle in the UK and applying for settlement using the domestic violence concession or being forced to leave the UK because there are no alternative visa options.
If the marriage had not broken down due to domestic abuse, the non-British spouse still needs urgent immigration legal advice, as their separation from their sponsoring spouse must be reported to the Home Office. Their Family Visa will then be curtailed. If the divorcing spouse applies for a different type of visa before the end of their curtailed visa, they may be able to remain in the UK and eventually apply for Indefinite Leave to Remain and British citizenship.
Going between two separate firms for some immigration and family law advice does not work for many clients because they do not know they need further immigration advice, and nor do their one-track family law solicitors. Separating clients are understandably too distressed by divorce proceedings to prioritise immigration status, and niche family lawyers do not always think to ask about whether a divorcing husband or wife has notified the Home Office or to consider the impact of a separation on a spouse’s immigration status.
Resolving immigration and family law issues
Immigration and family law issues come in many different forms. Here are just a few examples of when offering combined immigration and family law expertise can be of real benefit:
- A client comes to the UK on a Family Visa. The client meets the Family Visa financial requirement because they have cash savings. In addition to needing Spouse Visa advice, the client would benefit from discussing a postnuptial agreement and understanding the implications of bringing their children to England to live. Once the children are habitually resident in England, the Spouse Visa holder will need a relocation order from the English family court to return to their home country with the children.
- An immigration law client is in the UK on an Innovator Founder Visa. They meet and fall in love with someone in the UK on a Student Visa. The client wants to marry but needs to understand how marriage will affect their immigration status and their fiancé’s immigration options and routes to remain in the UK. The client needs family law advice on a prenuptial agreement to ringfence their SME business from forming part of the financial settlement and on family law jurisdiction. Potentially, if the couple were to divorce, there would be at least three court jurisdictions, England and their two home countries. Choosing the best court jurisdiction in the prenuptial agreement could save the client millions.
- Clients are British citizens desperate to start a family and are limited to the two options of international surrogacy or adoption from overseas. Either option may be a great way to grow their family, but their choice of country to adopt from or to engage the services of a surrogate from could make a difference to their child’s immigration status and the process and timeframe to secure British citizenship for the child.
- Stressed and busy care home owner who takes employment and immigration law advice on sponsor licences, Skilled Worker Visas, and Health and Care Worker Visas. They separated from their ex-spouse a few years ago. Their ex threatens to apply for a financial court order because the business turnover has quadrupled. Their ex-spouse is also restricting contact with the client’s child, as there is no child arrangement order in place.
A London-based law firm with global reach through its international clients across all five continents
At OTS Solicitors, we are small but global, with an international client base that spans five continents.
Our SME journey, size, and structure enable us to focus on our clients' needs. Clients want efficiency and digitalisation, but don’t want AI-generated family or immigration legal advice, or to ring a call centre and speak to an unnamed person about their immigration or family law problem.
Our family and immigration law teams provide:
- A named lawyer to work with you.
- Clear and comprehensive legal advice.
- Cost-effective services.
- Legal advice tailored to your family and/or immigration law needs.
- Proactive legal advice focused on problem-solving.
In addition to being named as the best Immigration & Family Law Firm 2025 – Southern England in the SME News UK Legal Awards 2025, OTS Solicitors are recommended in Legal 500 and receive excellent client reviews for their immigration and family law advice.
Give us a call if you need immigration or family law advice, or if you suspect you need advice on both family and immigration law aspects. Our friendly teams of immigration and family lawyers in London are here to help.
Our lawyers speak Arabic, Armenian, Farsi, French/Mauritian Creole, Tamil Tagalog/Ilonggo, Urdu/Punjabi.
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