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 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 a busy immigration practice, where she regularly appears in the First-tier and Upper Tribunals on a range of immigration matters, including asylum, human rights, deportation, entry clearance and family reunion. She has particular expertise in representing LGBTQI+ people seeking asylum, and assists Rainbow Migration’s legal team as a Consultant Lawyer, where she advises mostly unrepresented asylum seekers on individual claims, has worked on strategic litigation, and policy interventions.
Zehrah is well-versed in complex asylum matters more broadly, including revocation, exclusion and cases which involve complicated socio-political country contexts. She also has extensive experience in human rights appeals, for clients challenging deportation or wishing to enter or stay in the UK based on their private or family life.
Zehrah has been recognised for her thoughtful and fearless approach to advocacy in this jurisdiction, as she leaves no stone unturned when advising on evidence preparation and will often raise novel arguments in her written and oral submissions to advance her clients’ best interests; including in cases where there has been racial and other forms of systemic injustice. As a result, Zehrah is often instructed as junior or sole counsel in cases of strategic significance.
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 solicitors representing Palestinian clients on a range of immigration issues.
She is particularly keen to accept 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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Immigration: Personal and Business
Overview
Zehrah has a broad and active private practice on personal and business immigration matters. This includes asylum and human rights cases, as well as much wider and diverse immigration issues including: skilled worker routes, visit visas, applications for those with British partners or children, long residence and private life matters, adult dependent relatives, citizenship cases, and for EEA nationals. Zehrah also accepts instructions on sponsor licence decisions, having been involved in a vast array of campaigns and policy interventions on issues impacting migrant workers and the reaches of the hostile environment.
Zehrah has extensive experience advising on applications, undertaking appeal work, and drafting grounds for Administrative and Judicial Review in these cases. She is recognised by solicitors for her pragmatic and effective client care, careful preparation and advisory work, robust advocacy, and ability to handle sensitive and high-stakes cases. As a second-generation migrant herself, Zehrah understands the profound personal impact of immigration decisions on lay clients and brings this insight to her practice, by centering the human realities at the heart of complex legal issues in personal and business immigration matters.
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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 and human rights sector on high-profile public law cases, for example:
- In 2025, Zehrah co-authored (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.
- 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 2023, she was 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.
- In 2022, Zehrah was instructed as junior counsel for Detention Action (Intervenors), in a challenge concerning the children of the Jamaica 50.
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, and is regularly instructed to assist with asylum accommodation challenges and age dispute matters. She has appeared in the High Court on several complex age assessment cases against Local Authorities and the National Age Assessment Board and has successfully obtained permission and interim relief. Zehrah has raised novel legal arguments in these cases, including on racial prejudice against Black and brown children who are perceived as ‘adult-like’ based on physical appearance and demeanour, and on the systemic issues facing age-disputed children on arrival at the border and during age assessment interviews.
She has also 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.
