Turpin & Miller LLP was set up in Oxford in 2002 by two Partners, Philip Turpin and Clare Miller, who were both immigration and asylum specialists. Their vision was for a firm which had publicly funded work at its core, rather than as a sideshow to profitable private work. Over the next ten years the firm grew in size and stature and was recognised at the Legal Aid Lawyer Awards in 2012 as Legal Aid Firm of the Year. Three years later, one of our Immigration Partners won the Social Welfare Lawyer of the Year Award.

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Despite the devastation wrought by the Legal Aid Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act (‘LASPO’), the firm has continued to go from strength to strength. LASPO had a huge impact on our key area of immigration law, massively reducing the scope of available funding. In the face of this we have, of course, had to develop our private immigration work. Our success in attracting higher fee paying clients as well as providing a reasonably priced service for our less well-off clients has enabled us to grow our team rather than shrink it. Consistent with our original vision that publicly funded work should never been seen as a mere ‘adjunct’ we have put significant resources into our legal aid work, training up accredited caseworkers and expanding our litigation profile.

We have strong links with the local community – working with Oxford University, Oxfam, Asylum Welcome, Refugee Resource, Shelter, Women’s Aid, Flag DV, the Children’s Society, Oxford Against Cutting (FGM) and Social Services. Since 2009, we have run a pro bono law clinic in conjunction with Oxford University (Oxford Legal Assistance). We have a particular commitment to assisting clients in immigration detention and foreign national prisoners in local prisons. Tom Giles, the Partner who heads that work, has a national reputation for his work in this field. His notable cases in the last 12 months have included: R (ex parte Gudanaviciene) v Immigration and Asylum First Tier Tribunal [2017] EWCA Civ 35, R (ex parte Kedienhorn) v SSHD [2017] EWHC 3373, SSHD v Mosira [2017] EWCA Civ 407, Akinyemi v SSHD [2017] EWCA Civ 236, NA (Libya) v SSHD [2017] EWCA Civ 143) and, in the Supreme Court, R (Kiarie) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] UKSC 42.

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