Zehrah practises in immigration, asylum, education, and public law, with particular expertise in LGBTQI+ asylum, human rights cases, detention challenges, and representing survivors of torture, gender-based violence, trafficking, and exploitation.
Zehrah has previously worked at several leading non-profit organisations in the sector, including as the Advocacy Director of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI), as a Consultant Lawyer at Rainbow Migration, and in legal, policy, and campaigning roles at Liberty and Southall Black Sisters.
She has subsequently worked and advised on many strategic legal challenges, both as counsel and in NGOs, including on immigration detention, asylum accommodation and migrant workers’ rights.
She is also a founding Director of Black Protest Legal Support, was the Coordinator for the trade union Legal Sector Workers United, and served as Vice-Chair of the Human Rights Lawyers Association. Zehrah is an experienced media spokesperson and has appeared on Newsnight, Sky News, BBC News and LBC.
Immigration: Asylum & Human Rights
Overview
Zehrah has extensive experience appearing in the First-tier and Upper Tribunals in relation to a range of immigration matters, including asylum, human rights, deportation, entry clearance, family reunion, and EU Settlement. She has particular expertise in representing LGBTQI+ people seeking asylum, and has assisted Rainbow Migration’s legal team as a Consultant Lawyer, where she advised on individual claims, worked on strategic litigation, and policy interventions.
Zehrah is well-suited to accepting instructions in cases where lay clients have particularly complex needs or vulnerabilities, including survivors of trafficking, modern slavery and exploitation, and those with severe psychological conditions where capacity issues may be engaged.
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Immigration: Personal and Business
Overview
Zehrah accepts instructions related to settlement applications, British citizenship and naturalisation applications and other visas, including visit visas, family life applications, and those relating to the Points Based System. She has extensive experience in partnership applications and family reunion.
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Administrative and Public Law
Overview
Zehrah accepts instructions on a variety of public law matters relating to asylum and immigration, including unlawful detention, certification and inadmissibility challenges, delay cases and trafficking decisions.
She has also worked with several leading NGOs in the migration sector on high-profile public law cases. In 2023, whilst working as a Consultant Lawyer for Rainbow Migration, she contributed to the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission’s legal challenge against the Illegal Migration Act 2023, which was successful in the High Court in Belfast.
In 2022, Zehrah was instructed as junior counsel for Detention Action (Intervenors), in a challenge concerning the children of the Jamaica 50. In 2023, she was also instructed to advise JCWI on a matter concerning ‘hostile environment’ policies in the workplace and the duties of public authorities.
Zehrah also accepts instructions on wider public law matters concerning education law, protest rights, and prison law, and in particular where these issues intersect with migrants’ rights.
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Community Care Law
Overview
Zehrah accepts instructions in asylum accommodation challenges. She has worked extensively on these issues in legal, policy, and campaigning roles, and is experienced in challenging accommodation transfers to unsuitable accommodation, particularly for queer and trans people, and other vulnerable groups.
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Climate Justice
Overview
Zehrah accepts instructions in cases concerning climate justice and migration. Whilst working at JCWI, she co-developed legal and policy frameworks around climate and migration, and has a particular interest in running strategic cases for people seeking protection or settlement in the UK as a result of climate breakdown in the Global South.
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Education Law
Overview
Zehrah accepts instructions in a range of education law matters. She has particular expertise in education matters concerning racial injustice, LGBTQI+ rights, and protest law. Zehrah has previously worked with young people, their families, and grassroots community groups to challenge school exclusion and disciplinary decisions, including a high-profile campaign arising from student protests against racially discriminatory school policies. Zehrah therefore welcomes instructions on matters where students’ protest rights are concerned.
Further, given Zehrah’s extensive experience in immigration law, she is especially suited to education matters where immigration issues arise and clients require interdisciplinary expertise. Similarly, she has experience in youth justice work and challenging the criminalisation of racialised young people in the UK – both as a former criminal defence practitioner and having previously undertaken consultancy work for the Youth Justice Legal Centre and Just for Kids Law.
Consequently, Zehrah situates her education law practice within a wider framework of trying to dismantle the school to prison pipeline and the ways in which structural issues, such as racism, ableism, and transphobia, impact the lives of children and young people in educational settings. Zehrah is able to compassionately, sensitively and expertly work with children, young people and their families – and has previously supported organising work led by groups such as No More Exclusions and Kids of Colour.
