Duncan Lewis Solicitors

Public Law and Immigration

Lewis Kett is a solicitor in the public law and immigration departments at Duncan Lewis Solicitors. He has extensive experience in a wide range of judicial review challenges, with particular expertise in refugee law and immigration detention. He has a keen interest in developing strategic litigation with his recent work focussing particularly on mistreatment of immigration detainees and the conditions in which they are held.

His recent work is heavily based around challenges to both the lawfulness and conditions of immigration detention and includes the lead challenge to the SSHD’s Adults at Risk in Immigration Detention policy, which was found to be unlawful in irrationally restricting the definition of torture so that only those who were tortured by state actors could be recognised as vulnerable and be considered for release. He was also heavily involved in the first successful challenge to the use of segregation in immigration detention.

Other notable cases:

• MA & BB v SSHD [2019] EWHC 1523 – Successful challenge of SSHD failure to institute a Public Inquiry into abuse of detainees at Brook House.

• Hussein v SSHD [2018] EWHC 213 – Lock-in regime at Brook House constituted indirect discrimination to Muslim detainees forced to pray in conditions contrary to Art 9/14 ECHR.

Lewis has successfully represented clients in a variety of asylum applications and appeals. Many of his clients are extremely vulnerable individuals and include those who have been persecuted in their home countries, as well as former military interpreters, political protesters, victims of trafficking, and those fearing persecution due to their sexuality.

In 2018, Lewis won the Legal Aid Newcomer Award at the 2018 LALY Awards and in 2017 he was a finalist for the Junior Lawyer of the Year at the Law Society Excellence Awards where he was ‘Highly Commended’. In April 2016, he became the first trainee solicitor to be awarded The Times 'Lawyer of the Week' for his work in obtaining refugee status for a former Afghan military interpreter.

He has recently been shortlisted for Human Rights Solicitor of the Year at the 2019 Law Society Excellence Awards and Rising Star at the 2019 British Legal Awards.

Lewis joined Duncan Lewis Solicitors in 2012 and was admitted as a solicitor in July 2016.

Lewis is accredited as a Level 2 Supervisor under the Law Society’s Immigration and Asylum Accreditation Scheme. 

Lewis achieved a distinction in his LPC and obtained his LLB from Durham University.