Zehrah practises in immigration, asylum, 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 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, migrant workers’ rights, asylum accommodation, and Palestinian rights. Zehrah has also given evidence as an expert witness to Parliamentary Committees on the UK’s asylum system, migrant survivors of domestic abuse, and protest rights.
She has previously served as the Coordinator for the trade union Legal Sector Workers United, and as the 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 assists Rainbow Migration’s legal team as a Consultant Lawyer, where she advises on individual claims, has 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 gender-based violence trafficking, modern slavery and exploitation, and those with severe psychological conditions where capacity issues may be engaged.
Zehrah has also been instructed on strategic and individual pro bono cases relating to Palestinian refugees and migrants, including as junior Counsel for a major NGO, and welcomes instructions from Palestinian lay clients on a range of immigration issues.
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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, Public & Public International Law
Overview
Zehrah has a busy public law practice relating to asylum and immigration, including unlawful detention, certification, inadmissibility challenges, delay cases and trafficking decisions.
She is regularly instructed in judicial review matters in both the High Court and Upper Tribunal. Zehrah is particularly keen to assist instructing solicitors with strategic and advisory work at the early stages of challenges, to achieve the best outcomes for lay clients.
She also regularly undertakes public and administrative law challenges concerning migrant survivors of domestic violence, including transnational marriage abandonment cases, given her expertise and background in campaigning and advocating on these issues in previous roles.
Zehrah has 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. The advice was used for a briefing for their Migrant Champions Network and published online.
Zehrah has also worked on cases concerning public international law, for instance in 2025, co-authoring (with a colleague in Chambers) a pro bono legal advice which informed an investigation by Global Witness into the legal issues surrounding a gas pipeline operated by Israel which crosses Palestinian maritime territory, from which the EU has planned to import gas supplies to Europe. She was quoted in The Guardian for this work.
She 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 has a busy community care practice, in particular regularly assisting with asylum accommodation challenges and age dispute matters. 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 marginalised 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.
