Aneela Samrai

Aneela is a solicitor within the Social Welfare Team at TV Edwards who specialises in Homelessness cases and Public Law. She is committed to securing access to justice for all and empowering often marginalised clients to hold the state to account and defend their rights.

Aneela’s work includes representing clients in judicial review challenges of local authority and Home Office decisions, homelessness reviews and appeals and possession claims with discrimination counterclaims. She is regularly referred cases by national charities on behalf of clients who have experienced domestic abuse, modern day slavery and trafficking.

Before joining TV Edwards, Aneela worked as a solicitor at another leading firm specialising in Homelessness, Public Law and Discrimination.

She qualified as a solicitor in 2021 after completing a training contract with seats in Housing, Personal Injury, Crime and Civil Liberties. As a trainees in the Housing Team, she assisted a Partner on various housing matters including complex judicial review challenges, unlawful eviction, disrepair and homelessness. In the Personal Injury Team she assisted a partner with complex and high value personal injury and clinical negligence claims, multi-party product liability actions and judicial review challenges. In the Crime Team Aneela worked on a variety of criminal matters, including some of the most serious offences. In the Civil Liberties Team she worked with a Partner on inquests and claims for false imprisonment, assault, misfeasance in public office, misuse of private information, breaches of the Data Protection Act 2018 and breaches of the Human Rights Act 1998.

Prior to this, Aneela was a paralegal at another firm in their Public Law and Community Care Team. In this role she assisted clients in judicial review challenges of Home Office, other government department and local authority decisions. She also worked on the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.

Before this, Aneela worked at another firm as a paralegal in an Employment Law Team assisting solicitors to represent clients in a large and high profile group claim pursuing equal pay in a UK supermarket.

After graduation with a First Class degree in 2017 from the University of Manchester, she undertook the LLM Legal Practice Course, graduating with a Distinction from Nottingham Law School in 2018.

Aneela has volunteered with Refugee Action, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Refugee Forum, the Free Representation Unit, Legal Advice Centres, Camden and Barnet Citizen’s Advice and Streets Kitchen. In 2019 she volunteered with European Lawyers in Lesvos assisting lawyers to provide free asylum advice in Moria Refugee Camp, Lesvos.

From 2020 to 2022 Aneela was a Committee Member and Diversity Officer for Young Legal Aid Lawyers. She spearheaded YLAL’s equality and diversity work, organised and chaired multiple panel events, lead in drafting YLAL’s Social Mobility Report 2022 and co-drafted submissions to the Independent Review of Administrative Law and to the Independent Human Rights Act Review. She also mentored aspiring lawyers through YLAL and Urban Lawyers.

Panel Membership

• Member of Young Legal Aid Lawyers
• Member of Junior Housing Law Practitioners Association.

Recommendations

“Aneela Samrai is very sharp and pleasant to work with” – Legal 500, 2024.