A legal aid solicitor who was forced to leave the UK because of the skilled worker salary threshold has returned – after a law firm read about her plight in the Gazette and offered her a job.
Hilda Kwoffie, who arrived in the UK in 2016 on a student visa, had to return to Ghana last year because her salary was not high enough to stay in the UK.
Kwoffie returned to the UK last month. She told the Gazette that shortly after our article was published last December, Hinckley firm Daniel Bradley Law, which specialises in mental health and mental capacity law, was ‘touched by the story’ and reached out. ‘They were ready to sponsor me to come back to the UK’, she said.
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As Kwoffie had done her legal education and training in the UK, she was unable to work as a lawyer in Ghana in the intervening months. Thanks to her experience setting up and running The BAME Woman in Law, which supports black, Asian and minority ethnic women to break into the legal industry, she managed to get work as a business growth manager.
How does Kwoffie feel now? ‘I feel blessed. I feel super indebted to Daniel Bradley and Law. Thank you for taking a chance on me.’
When she was exploring potential routes back to the UK, Kwoffie came across a global talent visa, but found it was geared towards people from sectors such as the arts.
She said: ‘If I was doing art, had won an award here and there, I would be right on track for a global talent visa.’ Kwoffie has won a Women and Diversity in Law Award and was on the 2025/26 Diversity Power List. She would like to see eligibility criteria for the global talent visa reviewed.
Her story also shines a renewed spotlight legal aid pay. Mental health lawyers have not seen an uplift in their fees since 1996 and their fees were cut by 10% in 2011.
