Introduction
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
Check List Using The Regulations As A Template eg - Spouse Visa
Get Enough Sleep
Visa Application And Associated Costs
Preserving Records
Record Keeping And Management - How Long Do Documents Have To Be Kept?
Initial Requirements Regarding Accepting A Retainer
Failure Of Proper File Management Can Lead To Suspension As A Migration Agent
Interpreters
Confidentiality & Notifying The Client Of Complaint Procedure
Give Your Client A Copy Of Everything
Give Your Client The Bad News Immediately
Take Care While On Holidays
Clients & English
Check Special Requirements For Offshore Visas With The Embassy's Or Consulate's Website
Don't Accept Immigration's Assertion That Decisions Have Been Made Properly
Have No Fear Of Appeals
Never Advise Your Client To Make Life Changing Decisions Prior To The Grant Of A Visa & Trust Your Instincts
Before You Set The Fee With Your Client And Before You File A Visa Application
Oral Instructions
What Can Go Wrong If You Don't Record Your Mail Properly
Prepare Your Client For The Oath
Ideas For Chronologies For Client Files
Immigration Goes Into Hibernation On 30 June Each Year
Australia Closes Down Between Christmas & New Year
Have An Industrial Strength Office Set Up At The Office And At Home
What Is A Permanent Residence Visa?
Practice Together Or Practice In Groups
A Proper Email Account And Email Management
Undercharging And Undercutting On Fees
Positioning And Pathways And Fees (Putting All One's Eggs In One Basket)
Email & Fax Communication & Errors With Credit Cards Emerge As Troubling Issues
Preparing A Client For Merit Review Hearings Or Interviews With DIBP
Accountants And Migration Law
Passport
Berenguel - Sometimes Time Of Application Criteria Can Be Met At Time Of Decision
Bare Faced Liars & The Fraudsters
Everyone's Doing It
Bridging Visas
Visas Remain Current Until Midnight
Immigration Closes At 4pm
Looking After Secondary Visa Holders In A Visa Cancellation Process
Applying As A Secondary Visa Applicant Onshore When The Primary Visa Applicant Is Offshore
Being Illegal
Essential Prerequisites For A Ministerial Discretion Application
Last Lunge Applications
State And Territory Sponsorship
Addresses
Believing The Client
Follow Up
Make Peace With The Tax Office
No Obligation On Immigration To Chase Up Information Or Documents From Migration Agents Or Lawyers Representing A Client
Errors In Visa Applications
Spouse Visas - Unexplained Large Deposits of Money
Managing No. 8503 On Tourist Visas
Medical Consent
Statutory Declarations
Merit Review
Tax Deductibility of Migration Advice
LEGENDcom
Dates On Documents And Names On Documents
Breaking Up Is Hard To Do
Take A Statement
Case Management Software
Work Rights
Student
Check All Past Visa Applications
Revealing Convictions
Visa Holders Being On Their Best Behaviour
Email Communication With Immigration - Delete All Strings
No Without Prejudice Conversations With Immigration
Accounts Managements
What Is A Secondary Visa?
Identify Australian Citizens Who Support An Applicant
Communications
Schedule 1 Criteria
Second Thing To Do On Starting A File - Download The Relevant Part Of The Law
First Thing To Do When Starting Any File - Identify Any 'Rights Destroying' Deadlines
Lodging Paper Applications
Social Media & Smart Phones
References
Disputes About Parentage And Children
Helping People Pass The English Tests
Managing Emails
What Is The Pomodoro Technique?
Immigration Telephones Client
When Is A Visa Application Made In Australia
Apply For A Visa In Australia
No Visa Application Is An Island
The Hammock Principle
um non nocere is a Latin phrase that means “First, do no harm“. The phrase is sometimes recorded as primum nil nocere.
Nullus in verba – take nobody’s word for it
Almost 2500 years ago, Confucius said: “Good government obtains when the population is made happy, and those who are far off are attracted.”
Voltaire (“Donnes a tous vos sujets envie de demeurer chez vous, aux etrangers d’y venir“), expressed a similar view when he counselled governments to make citizens want to continue to stay in their country, and to encourage foreigners to want to move there.
Septuagenarian and doyen of the Australian legal profession Mark Leibler of Melbourne’s Arnold Bloch Leiblerwrote :
‘Always return a phone call within 24 hours and never make a decision without sleeping on it’
The hammock principle of advocacy is don’t force the judge to get out of the hammock to find anything or do anything. If the judge can do it all from the hammock chances are he or she will do it from there.
For visas this translates to having a decision ready application accompanied by a submission which meets all the criteria – the best way to do this is simply to pull out the regulations from Legend for that visa and put a comment under each criteria identifying what the evidence is and how the client meets the criteria.
Similarly with the AAT, make the tribunal comfortable in knowing that the relevant criterion or criteria have been met by a submission referring to the evidence and how the evidence meets the criteria.
Some of this need not be extensive, for example the writer in a case involving a de facto relationship where there was an Australian citizen child to the relationship did not provide a lot of evidence to establish the relationship apart from the birth certificate of the child.
The hammock principle is about giving the decision maker the comfort of making a decision from the hammock and ordinarily this involves the issue which may be the problematical or controversial issue.