With the announcement of the UK immigration, limitations may be faced by a lot of people. One of them is law firms, which are going to face new limitations as part of the new permanent immigration cap that comes in effect in 2011.

As part of the amendments, there are changes brought to the points-based immigration system for skilled migration program. The changes include the removal of the Tier 1 general category for highly-skilled workers. This means it will not allow the movement of migrants from non European Union nations from April, 2011. Until now the Tier 1 general category has been used extensively by law firms in the United Kingdom to hire skilled professionals from across the world. With the implementation of the new cap, this will surely have an effect on these firms.

As the tier 1 general category has been eliminated, from next year onwards UK’s law firms will be required to rely on the Tier 2 general category in order to hire overseas international skilled professionals.

The new immigration cap has also placed a limit on intra-company transfers, which may also affect the law firms in the United Kingdom. However, one thing should be kept in mind that the limit is not applicable on those whose earning is over 40,000 Euros. In other words, non EU nationals are permitted to transfer as part of the intra-company transfers scheme to the United Kingdom for a maximum 5 years.