Turkish Attorney - Do Irish law firms offer Visa sponsorship?

Landoflemon

Essentially I'm hoping to hear from anybody working in an Irish law firm who either has a work visa through their firm, or has a colleague working under those circumstances. I'm asking on behalf of my girlfriend.

She was a criminal attorney in Turkey, but has moved to Ireland, completed a Masters in Law in Galway, and is studying for the FE1 exams. As she is not an EU citizen, the primary concern now is whether Irish law firms offer Visa sponsorship?

She has a Stamp 1g at the moment which allows her 2 years to look for employment.

Bakharwaldog

Don't know the answer to your question but for the 2 years after the masters she shouldn't need sponsorship. And then if you live together in the 2 years prior to her visa expiring she can apply for a De Facto partner visa which will allow her to work without sponsorship.

Landoflemon

Thanks for the suggestion, while she still has an apartment in Galway, she has been staying with me in Limerick since March lockdown 2020, I'll look into what is possible. Thanks for pointing me in a potential direction.

Pronto63

Bakharwaldog wrote: »

Don't know the answer to your question but for the 2 years after the masters she shouldn't need sponsorship. And then if you live together in the 2 years prior to her visa expiring she can apply for a De Facto partner visa which will allow her to work without sponsorship.

De Facto, for immigration purposes, means you will have to have her name on a joint lease, bank a/c’s.
Also for a period of 2 years.

chunkylover4

I think it's very unlikely any firm would offer this unfortunately because of the way the legal labour market operates but particularly not in the area of criminal law. Hopefully I'm wrong about that but I've worked as a solicitor for a number of years in a large and medium sized firm and have never come across visa sponsorship.

Landoflemon

chunkylover4 wrote: »

I think it's very unlikely any firm would offer this unfortunately because of the way the legal labour market operates but particularly not in the area of criminal law. Hopefully I'm wrong about that but I've worked as a solicitor for a number of years in a large and medium sized firm and have never come across visa sponsorship.

Yeah, I work in Engineering and I'm very used to seeing visa sponsorship, its a shame for her that the legal labour market doesn't work in the same way, as she's working hard to get the FE1s. Looks like we'll either have to get very lucky with a firm that does sponsorship, or wait a number of years for the relationship to mature to visa appropriate levels (she does not want to rely on that), or until she qualifies for citizenship.

Peregrinus

There's a limited market for foreign lawyers in Ireland, and there's a very limited number of Irish-qualffied lawyers who need a visa to work in Ireland. There's no culture in Irish law practices of visa sponsorhip mainly because the combination of circumstances in which it might be required very rarely arises, and therefore employers are unfamiliar with it, and therefore it seems like a very big deal.

The law practices most likely to be willing to do the work involved in visa sponsorship would be the large commercial practices, and the lawyers for whom they are most likel to be open to doing it would be lawyers with relatively scarce specialised knowledge or experience.

Landoflemon

Thanks for the reality check, at least we're not going into this overly optimistic. Her experience would be good, having successfully defended clients in murder trials in Turkey, but it makes sense that law firms here typically never have to accommodate for visa's given the nature of the market. It's going to be a very tough route to go, but the first step is to finish the FE1's and see what we can figure out.