Fast-growing law firm K3 Legal has formed an alliance with immigration experts, Pathways to New Zealand Ltd, to offer additional support to benefit both of their client lists.
While Covid-19 put the brakes on this year, immigration is likely to be a growth area in 2021 as essential workers, highly-skilled migrants, some international students and investor migrants increasingly look to head to New Zealand.
K3 Legal director Edwin Morrison said today: “In addition to our extensive Kiwi clientele, K3 has a lot of international clients, so if anyone needs expert immigration advice we will now be referring them to Pathways. And, if any of their clients need legal support, we’ll be ready to help. K3 can also offer their customers accounting and business consulting too.”
The two companies have been working together loosely for about a year but this has been increasing due to demand.
Morrison said K3 and Pathways had collaborated very well on a number of projects recently and it made sense to forge a closer alliance. “We’re two businesses at the top of our respective games and we’re looking forward to our alignment offering clients an even better and more seamless experience. Given more than 40% of Auckland residents are born overseas and New Zealand is increasingly seen as a safe haven, we expect a lot of growth in 2021.”
K3 is based in Auckland, while Pathways has offices in Hamilton and Wellington. www.k3.co.nz www.pathwaysnz.com
Pathways managing director, Richard Howard said: “All we do is New Zealand immigration work so K3 Legal will now refer to us any front-end immigration work, such as all types of visa applications, and people facing any immigration difficulties. And, in return, we will send them any legal work that eventuates off the back of that, such as employment, property, commercial or relationship property matters.”
With 12 licensed immigration advisers, Pathways is the second-largest immigration company in the industry in New Zealand. Howard has been working in immigration for almost 30 years and is a life member and past chairman of the New Zealand Association for Migration and Investment (NZAMI). He was at the helm in 2008 when the immigration advice industry was regulated and immigration advisers were required to be licensed, and his team has more than 125 years of combined immigration experience.
“We’ve been doing this a long time and have helped more than 20,000 people with their various immigration requirements. While China and India have made up the majority of clients in the past, largely because of international students coming here, during the last five years we have assisted people from 110 different countries with their New Zealand immigration.”
Howard said many people didn’t realise that most immigration work was carried out “in country”. At Pathways, “85% of our business is helping people who are already in New Zealand to extend, change or upgrade their visas although, interestingly, the demand from overseas for investor immigration is the highest it has ever been on the back of New Zealand’s success with COVID-19”.
New Zealand continues to be a coveted destination for migrants. Statistics NZ numbers show that, in the year to June 2019, New Zealand’s net gain was 11.4 migrants per 1,000 population, compared to six in Australia and four in both the UK and USA.
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