Billal Malik

Overview

Billal specialises in family law (financial remedies and children matters) and immigration law. He can also help clients with employment law matters. Billal has years of experience in various courts and tribunals, including: the family court, immigration tribunals, employment tribunals, the High Court, and the Court of Appeal.

Billal’s family law work includes financial remedies cases involving division of the matrimonial home, valuation of business assets, allegations of hidden assets, applications for spousal maintenance, and pension sharing orders. His family law children-related practice includes disputes about the parent with whom a child should live, domestic abuse allegations, and parental alienation issues.

Billal is a highly regarded immigration practitioner with expertise in complex immigration and nationality matters. He, therefore, has particular expertise in family court children matters with an immigration-related dimension.

Billal previously worked as a criminal practitioner for several years. During this time, he prosecuted (on behalf of the Crown Prosecution Service) and defended in numerous cases involving allegations such as domestic violence and fraud. He is therefore well-placed to help clients in the family court who are making or defending themselves against allegations of financial misconduct or domestic abuse.

Billal’s other experience includes working as a law tutor at King’s College, University of London, and as a legal editor for an international legal publisher. He has authored several articles on various aspects of law.

Year of qualification: 2008

Family (children) practice

Children Act proceedings
Fact-finding hearings, Dispute Resolution Appointment (DRA) hearings, and final hearings

Family and property practice

Matrimonial finance/financial remedies proceedings
First hearings, Financial Dispute Resolution (FDR), and final hearings
Advice on financial settlements
Cohabitees and TLATA proceedings
Landlord and tenant

Immigration practice

Article 8, human rights, and family applications
ILR and nationality issues
Deportation
Sponsored working and business
Administrative Review applications
Appeals to the immigration tribunals and courts against Home Office decisions
Judicial review claims against Home Office decisions

Employment practice

Unfair dismissal
Discrimination
Whistleblowing
Employment tribunal claims and hearings

Qualifications & Awards

Qualifications: LLB (Law), LLM (Human Rights Law): King’s College London
Leonard Woodley Scholarship
King’s College London Human Rights Law prize
Kalisher Essay Competition prize

Publications

Children Act proceedings and immigration – The Law Society Gazette
Retrospective Legislation & the ECHR – Law Journal
Tribunal Procedure & Time Limits – Law Journal
Mutual Assistance: JP Morgan Chase v SSHD – Criminal Law & Justice
Confiscation Orders & Bankruptcy – Criminal Law & Justice
Silence on Legal Advice – International Journal of Evidence & Proof
The Hearsay Rule Under the CJA 2003 – International Journal of Evidence & Proof

Notable Cases

Family: children

J v K & Anor [2024] EWHC 2271 (Fam) – acted for the mother in High Court proceedings under Article 21 of the Hague Convention 1980. The case concerned child arrangements for a nine-year-old child and involved complex issues of international relocation and alleged parental alienation.

M v F [2025] EWFC 128 (B) – appeared on behalf of the mother in Children Act proceedings, representing her in a fact-finding hearing. The case involved complex cross-allegations of domestic abuse and coercive control, including assertions by the father that the mother had exploited his dependent immigration status. The court held the mother to be a credible witness, and made findings against the father for coercive and controlling behaviours.

S v E unreported [2026] – appeared on behalf of the father in a lengthy fact-finding hearing concerning allegations of sexual abuse, which the father alleged were raised by the mother to restrict the father’s contact with the child. As well as submitting that the father did not abuse the child, Billal invited the court to use its inquisitorial jurisdiction to consider a third factual possibility beyond the binary possibility that the allegations were either true or fabricated by the mother.

Family: divorce

X v A [2021] EWFC 118 – appeared on behalf of the husband in Family Court proceedings concerning cross-applications for Occupation Orders and a nullity petition. The case centred on the validity of the marriage and the wife’s half-share property transfer to the husband. As the wife suffered from undiagnosed dementia, the proceedings involved complex issues of capacity, consent, and duress.

Family: financial remedies

S v S (unreported, 2024) – appeared on behalf of the wife in an appeal to the High Court regarding a disputed loan and alleged sham. The wife asserted that the loan agreement had been fraudulently invented to defeat her financial remedy claim.

A v A (unreported, 2025) – appeared on behalf of a husband in a complex financial remedy matter involving company and personal assets distributed across several countries.

Immigration and human rights

Secretary of State for the Home Office v Khattak [2021] EWCA Civ 1873 – appeared on behalf of an immigration applicant in an appeal to the Court of Appeal relating to a decision of the Home Office. The case concerned a parent’s eligibility for leave to remain through the “parent route” and turned on the legal definition of the term “partner” in Appendix FM to the Immigration Rules. The Home Office was represented by a QC (now KC); despite this, the Court of Appeal agreed with Billal’s submissions and decided in favour of his client, in a ruling that had significant implications for all immigration applicant parents in the UK.

AM & MM v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025] UI-2024-004629 − appeared on behalf of two vulnerable sisters in an appeal against the decision of the Home Office to refuse their application for entry clearance to join their brother in the UK. The case involved complex factual circumstances, with the sisters being nationals of Eritrea, being stuck in Egypt, and wanting to join their family in the UK. The Upper Tribunal allowed the sisters’ appeals under Article 8 of the ECHR, having found that their precarious situation constituted “compelling” circumstances that warranted entry clearance.

ZC v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025] UI-2024-004548 – appeared on behalf of a Chinese national in an appeal to the Upper Tribunal against the Home Office’s deportation order. The Tribunal concluded that the Appellant’s deportation would meet the high threshold of having an “unduly harsh” impact on his partner – who was a highly vulnerable trafficking victim – and on his children. The Upper Tribunal found that the First-tier Tribunal had erred in law, and allowed the appeal on human rights grounds (Article 8 of the ECHR).

Secretary of State for the Home Department v Anwer [2023] UI-2023-001327 – appeared on behalf of an elderly Indian woman in an appeal brought by the Home Office to the Upper Tribunal. The Home Office appealed a First-tier Tribunal decision to allow the woman’s human rights appeal against a refusal of leave to remain. The First-tier Tribunal had initially held that the woman’s mental and physical deterioration and her lack of family support in India would create “very significant obstacles” to her re-integration in India. The Upper Tribunal upheld the First-tier Tribunal’s decision to allow her appeal.