Vishal Makol

Experience

Vishal’s background in immigration commenced in personal and family immigration matters. This included contentious and non-contentious immigration matters, such as dealing with refugee law, asylum, human rights, Judicial Review and appeal work. He has:

• Drafted detailed and complex grounds for Judicial Reviews and Skeleton Arguments in Appeal work, when the Home Office had made adverse decisions on representations submitted by the applicants for their Immigration applications.
• Assisted multiple blue-chip companies in securing Home Office Sponsor Licences to employ foreign nationals in the UK through the Skilled Worker and Global Business Mobility routes and for the companies to maintain compliance.
• Acted for sponsors facing Home Office investigation, revocation of their licence, civil and criminal penalties for breaching their immigration obligations, which included employing illegal migrants, failing to keep proper documentation etc.
• Advised employers and employees on complying with immigration law including prevention of illegal working by taking the relevant right to work checks.
• Represented an assignee and their unmarried same sex partner who were applying for entry clearance as a Skilled Worker visa and Dependant visa. The application for the Skilled Worker visa was granted but the Dependant visa was refused. Vishal drafted detailed complex representations to the Home Office explaining the legal mistake in their decision letter. The decision was subsequently reversed, and the dependant partner was granted with entry clearance visa.
• Represented applicants in naturalisation applications, where the required absences exceeded what was permitted or where there was an issue with the good character requirement. Vishal advised the applicants accordingly on the rules and subsequent representations were drafted to the Home Office to address the absences and reasons why the good character requirement was satisfied and for the Home Office to exercise discretion in their decision making. This resulted in the applications being granted.

Career

After gaining a degree in Actuarial Science and Statistics at City University, Vishal embarked on a career in law and completed firstly the Graduate Diploma in Law and then the Legal Practice Course at Chester College of Law in 2006.

Subsequently he obtained a training contract at a busy high street firm in Willesden Green, London and qualified as a Solicitor in 2010.  He then moved to another newly established high street firm in Southall, London where he was a salaried director from 2012 to 2017.

A stint in the Midlands followed at multi-office regional firm in 2018. He then returned to Central London, to work for a Legal 500 firm from 2018 to 2020. He was then a consultant Solicitor from 2020 to 2022 and finally moved to his previous role at one of the big accounting firms in July 2022.

A big part of Vishal’s early career was dealing with private and personal immigration. However more recently he has gained substantial experience in Business Immigration. He has now relocated to Birmingham to his family roots and to join Wright Hassall’s Business Immigration as an associate in 2024. 

Memberships

• Immigration Law Practitioners Association

Interests

Outside of work Vishal enjoys watching and attending football matches. Hailing from the Merseyside area, he is an avid fan of Liverpool Football Club and attends matches regularly with his family at Anfield and elsewhere. Vishal also enjoys watching most sports particularly tennis and all forms of cricket.

Vishal also enjoys listening to a variety of music from 1960s Merseybeat, Bhangra to Hip Hop and R & B. Vishal also enjoys attending pub quizzes, astronomy, watching science fiction programmes, quiz shows, Hindi and English films.