Chris Dias

Chris co-founded Lawyery with Crystal Dias to prove that a law firm could be digital first, ethically run and genuinely expert at the same time. His practice is business immigration: getting employers licensed, keeping them compliant, and moving exceptional people to the UK.

Admitted as a solicitor in 2001 after studying law at SOAS University of London, Chris spent over a decade as Partner and Head of Immigration at Dias Solicitors before roles at Gunnercooke LLP and Horsfield Menzies, launching Lawyery in 2022. 2026 marks his 25th year in practice, and in that time he has acted for everyone from owner managed businesses to listed companies and tech unicorns. His conviction is that domain expertise wins cases: one field, known deeply and practised daily, rather than a general practice spread thin.

Work he is known for

Chris has obtained a fresh sponsor licence without penalty for a PLC whose licence had lapsed, then secured its incoming CEO's visa from the USA. He managed the surrender and reapplication of a tech unicorn's sponsor licence through a change of ownership, transferring every sponsored worker without disruption. On the personal side of business immigration, he has won Global Talent endorsement for a major fintech investor, a three year exceptional talent grant for an Australian singer songwriter, and an Innovator Founder visa for a graduate with under a month remaining on her leave.

The Innovator Founder route is a particular specialism. Chris takes founders from first concept to endorsement and visa: testing the business against the innovation, viability and scalability criteria, shaping the business plan, and preparing the application, often under real time pressure. He also built ukinnovator.online, a free AI tool that gives founders a preliminary assessment of their business concept before they spend anything on advice.

Chris also holds the Law Society's certification in employment law, and it shapes how he practises. Working with a network of boutique employment law firms, he gives crossover advice to companies and migrants where immigration and employment law meet: sponsor compliance in a redundancy exercise, right to work on a business transfer, the visa consequences of a settlement agreement. Immigration advice with an employment law perspective is rare, and it makes Lawyery a natural partner for employment lawyers whose clients need both.

Beyond the day job

Chris teaches the Level 2 Advanced Immigration Law IAA course for Free Movement, writes for Free Movement and the Lawyery blog on immigration policy, AI in law and professional ethics, and mentors students at the Queen Mary Legal Advice Centre. He is the author of the 10 Non-Negotiables, a code of ethics for immigration lawyers, which Lawyery was the first UK firm to sign, and the founder of Legalaid Ltd, which builds AI tools for immigration practitioners and the public.

His current work sits at the meeting point of the two: Countersigned, the supervision process behind Lawyery's AI-assisted work, and NativeLaw, launching soon, the infrastructure for making any regulated firm AI-native. He is clear about where he stands: AI is an extraordinary tool, and it does not replace lawyers.