By Josh Robson, Associate, Baker & McKenzie LLP, London (Coram Children’s Legal Centre is a partner of KIND in the UK)
At Baker McKenzie, we have worked with Coram Children’s Legal Centre and Kids in Need of Defense (KIND) since 2019. The partnership is one of our London office’s deepest pro bono relationships, and we have worked on over 100 cases under Coram’s excellent supervision.
Each one of those 100 cases has involved children and a family in very difficult circumstances who we have been able to help through the KIND project.
One that stands out for me is a really challenging recent case involving a family that had arrived in the UK as refugees, and were seeking to secure their eight-year-old daughter’s status by gaining British citizenship.
The surrounding circumstances, involving unwell family members in the UK and overseas as well as significant delays on the part of the Home Office (the government department responsible for citizenship applications) meant that the application became urgent.
Our team worked quickly and creatively to best assist the family and find a solution. This including escalating the case within the Home Office and engaging with the family’s Member of Parliament (their local elected representative).
All the hard work paid off, and the application was successful – the daughter is now a British citizen. She can feel secure about her status, and is free to enjoy all the opportunities and benefits of the country which she now calls home.
The family was relieved and delighted, and we received several messages of thanks following the successful outcome of the case. One simply said, “I’m truly grateful for your help, and this means a lot to our family.”
Throughout the case, we were in close contact with the father, who highly appreciated our assistance. He stressed the tangible difference we helped bring about to his daughter’s life, such as enabling her to travel freely and meet her elderly grandparents after many years of separation.
We have also been inspired to continue to raise the bar in our work with Coram and KIND, and are applying the latest technology and knowhow to rethink how we can best support other families in the future and expand the support we can offer. We are currently piloting AI technology coupled with advanced document automation to maximise our team’s efficiency, and plan to deploy it on live cases in the near future.
The successful outcome of the case and the appreciation expressed by the family formed a highly rewarding conclusion to what was a very valuable experience for our team – it is really satisfying to have been able to make a difference in the life of the family through our work with Coram and KIND.
