BENEFITS to YOU of
THE LEGAL & BUSINESS BACKGROUND of
MR. RICKARD & HIS MIGRATION TEAM
1. Immigration law is very complex and you need an educated and wise legal adviser to make the complex clear for you - Justin Rickard has three university degrees (including a law degree and a Masters in English literature), from Australia’s oldest www.usyd.edu.au and best university www.australian-universities.com/best-universities.

Sydney University
He is now commencing studies for his fourth degree (Masters of Law in migration) at The University of Sydney following an invitation from Prof. Mary Crock. Justin Rickard attended excellent schools in London, Boston and Sydney - www.staloysius.nsw.edu.au & www.riverview.nsw.edu.au before university.

2. So that you are advised about all the options available to you, you must ensure you pick a lawyer with as much broad and relevant experience as possible so that you are advised about all the options available to you – there is unlikely to be anyone in Australia with the mixture of such broad litigation and then exclusive experience as an immigration lawyer and migration agent as Justin Rickard. His early training, whilst still a fresh law student, was in Australia’s most prestigious law firm, Allen Allen & Hemsley (now called Allens, www.aar.com.au) compiling evidence on behalf of their client Mr. Al-Fayed (www.al-fayed.com), who owns Harrods in London (www.harrods.com) and L’Hotel Ritz in Paris (www.ritzparis.com). He later became famous as the father of Dodi Al-Fayed, killed in the car accident in Paris with Princess Diana. After Allens, Justin Rickard was sent by them to London and worked for Freshfields www.freshfields.com, a leader among international law firms, providing business law advice of the highest quality throughout Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the U.S. With over 2,400 lawyers in 28 key business centres around the world, Freshfields provide a comprehensive service to national and multinational corporations, financial institutions and governments.

3. Justin Rickard has also worked as a commercial litigation lawyer in Macquarie St., Sydney (the city’s premier street for professionals) overlooking the magnificent Circular Quay (above) for 2 years and as a criminal defence lawyer for Australia’s Aborigines in Redfern and throughout remote rural NSW, http://www.nwjc.org.au/atisla.html. Such broad litigation experience will help you if you need to sue the Immigration Department to get your visa.

4. It is far better for you to have a legal representative who has travelled extensively overseas and is cross- culturally aware and educated – Justin Rickard has worked as a lawyer and or presented migration seminars throughout Bangladesh (2 times), Cambodia, China (5 times, including Beijing, Shanghai, Datong, Dalian, Dandong, Urumqi, Xian and Hong Kong), England, France, Fiji, India (3 times), Indonesia (9 times), Kenya (3 times), New Zealand, the Philippines (2 times), Singapore (many times), South Africa and Zimbabwe (he will also be travelling this next 2 years for his clients to China, USA, UK, South Africa and Czech Republic); he has lived overseas for over four years (Europe, England and the USA) – so he knows what the world is like outside Australia and why many people migrate to Australia. He has migration joint ventures right now developing in Hong Kong, India, South Africa, the Philippines and England.

5. You want your lawyer to have won many cases so he has the courage and discernment to know whether yours is winnable - Justin Rickard has represented well over 1,500 people in successful migration applications to the Australian government (all of these clients have obtained temporary and or permanent residence visas via him). He has give immigration seminars to well over 5,000 people worldwide, being interviewed about migration on talk back radio in Australia, Kenya and the Philippines (audience of hundreds of thousands of migrants) and personally interviewed & advised over 3,500 migrants (all of these figures are best estimates as the numbers are so large). Even inside immigration Justin Rickard has specialized over the years in skilled, family, business and employer sponsorship and medical cases. This has given him unique and unusual skills in understanding how migration works at the coalface.

6. You need a lawyer who keeps up to date with his profession and has wide networks - we keep our knowledge current through memberships in professional groups such as the Migration Institute of Australia www.mia.org.au and the Law Society of NSW www.lawsociety.com.au as well as continuing education. Justin Rickard has also been an Australian government registered migration agent www.themara.com.au (# 97-90625) since 1994 – so he is subject to the disciplinary sanctions and oversight of these 2 professional bodies in everything he does for you. A migration agent who is not also a lawyer is only subject to MARA.

7. You can be secure with our many years of experience as Justin Rickard was admitted to practice law in the Supreme Court of NSW www.lawlink.nsw.gov.au/sc on 19 December 1986, nearly 21 years ago, and then all Federal Courts of Australia www.fedcourt.gov.au, which include the High Court of Australia in Canberra www.hcourt.gov.au.

8. You need a lawyer who knows how the Immigration Dept. works from the inside - Justin Rickard has also have been on the other side of the migration fence - as a sub-contracted lawyer for the Australian Immigration Department, starting in 1992 in the refugee camps in Port Hedland, W.A and Darwin. In this capacity he represented refugee applicants against the Immigration Dept. This further enhanced his knowledge and experience by giving him unique insights into how the immigration Dept. operate and make decisions, often in such a poor, unjust, ill-informed and callous manner.

Children in migration detention, Australia
9. It was after this work with the Australian Immigration Department (now called DIAC) that Justin Rickard decided to set up his own practice as an immigration lawyer in 1994 so that he could help clients like get full access to proper justice in their migration applications.

10. Currently we only accept about 70 – 80 new clients a year -- and this allows us to focus more time and attention on each client, as an individual with their own individual needs.

11. With our head office in Dee Why, we are accessible on the beautiful northern beaches of Sydney and far more convenient than travelling into the city in the traffic and dealing with the expensive and inconvenient parking there.

Dee Why beach sunrise
12. Our office is conveniently right next to the main bus stop on Pittwater Rd. Dee Why and there is always parking within 200m of our office next to the Dee Why post office on Oaks Ave.

13. We always respond quickly to our clients as our office is always manned 9 am – 6pm Monday to Friday. Mr. Rickard’s mobile is on at least 12 hours a day weekdays and messages can be left for him on it 24/7. Obviously, we work with clients by email and telephone for everyone's benefit. A brief biography of our professional team:

Elizabeth Le, Justin Rickard’s assistant lawyer, was admitted as a Legal Practitioner of the Supreme Court of Queensland in 2004 and NSW in 2007. After admission, Elizabeth practiced in Family Law at the Women’s Legal Centre (QLD) for a short period of time before travelling across Europe in 2005 and 2006. During that time, she worked at Clifford Chance, the largest law firm in the world, in their European Competition and Regulation Department. Elizabeth is now working and studying at the Australian National University in Canberra to become a successful Registered Migration Agent and immigration lawyer under the mentorship of Justin Rickard. Elizabeth herself is the daughter of Vietnamese refugees to Australia, so the migration story is etched in her family’s blood.

City of London
Helen Crawford Taylor, our Customer Liaison Manager, is from the U.K. and brings a wealth of U.K. experience spanning over 35 years in customer service. Her training in Merchant and Retail banking coupled with working for a Major Advertising Company give her breadth of knowledge required in this very important part of our business. Of great importance to our clients is the fact that Helen and her family obtained their Australian permanent resident's visas from Justin Rickard & Associates and as such, she believes 110% in the results Justin Rickard & Associates produces for their clients.
14. We provide legal services that are usually not offered by other lawyers such as liaising with your accountant, recommendations to other trusted professionals and tradesmen on the northern beaches (as Justin Rickard has practiced law there for over 10 years he knows the sharks that swim out of the water in the area!) and confidential access to our unique network of worldwide lawyers and migrants.

15. You benefit when you have a lawyer who is personally stable, honest and reliable – Justin Rickard, has a well deserved reputation (please feel free to ask around) as both an honest and successful migration lawyer who been operating his legal practice from Dee Why for over 10 years and for 15 years in Australia. He has been featured in newsprint articles about his migration work in “The Manly Daily” and “The South Coast Register” newspapers and “Australian Mining” magazine (copies available) and interviewed about migration on ABC Radio in Dubbo after giving a migration seminar there to the local regional development group.

16. He has been married for over 10 years to Lisa. They have three beautiful children; 9, 7 & 2 years old. The family now just outside Sydney where Justin Rickard is establishing a regional office. Sydney. Lisa is a former winner of the Australian Financial Review Young Achievers (in business) award, “The Manly Daily” Give Youth a Go Award, a qualified real estate agent www.reinsw.com, child care teacher and author. Lisa now runs the books, pays wages and bills in our firm.

17. Justin Rickard, a fifth generation Australian, comes from a distinguished family. His forebears were decorated for military service at Gallipoli in Turkey and in France in WWI as Anzacs and in Papua New Guinea in WWII with the Australian Army. His father recently retired after 35 years as a staff specialist at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney www.cs.nsw.gov.au/rpa & Professor of Medicine at Sydney University, having received Australia’s highest civilian honour – the Order of Australia www.theorderofaustralia.asn.au (please look him up on the site) for services to medicine and the Royal Australian Naval Reserve, where he was a Surgeon Captain, www.navy.gov.au/reserves_new/home/Home.cfm. . Justin Rickard’s family are all well respected in their professions; his mother is a social worker and counsellor, his brother a respected surgeon at Concord Hospital in Sydney and his sister a school teacher.

You are in safe hands with our migration team.