How We Help

Simar Hermis is an immigration lawyer as well as a registered migration agent. Simar and the team at Hermis & Associates have experience across nearly all visa categories and provide our clients with a range of different services to ensure their migration matters are successful.

There are a significant number of benefits when engaging a migration agent who is also a lawyer such as:

1. Immigration law is one of the most complicated areas of law in Australia. It is constantly changing and the regulations and policy are being updated on regular basis and can be very difficult to interpret. Immigration law in Australia operates against the backdrop of over 3000 pages of relevant legislation, 16, 000 pages of policy guidelines and parliamentary directives and about 150 visa categories. In an area such as this, a legal qualification may prove to be the critical difference to achieve the best outcome for the client.
2. The communication between our clients and Simar are protected under what is known as “legal professional privilege”. It is important to remember that the clients of non-lawyer migration agents are not protected under this privilege.
3. Lawyers must meet more rigorous professional standards and are registered with two separate regulatory bodies: Lawyers must renew their legal Practising Certificate annually in addition to their migration agents registration and this means a higher level of continuing education as well as a higher level of regulation governing the level of service expected of Immigration Lawyers.
4. As a profession, lawyers must adhere to the ethical and professional standards as regulated by the Legal Profession Act 2004 (NSW). This is on top of the provisions set out in OMARA’s Code of Conduct. The standard set for immigration lawyers is therefore very high.