Short one. I spent this week on the moves pages instead of the deal wires, and the moves are the better story. Three Riyadh partners going back to the firm they left. A Clyde & Co partner who started at Linklaters on 1 October. The lawyer who ran Freshfields' Saudi disputes practice leaving for a boutique. Nobody in Riyadh is sitting still.
Latham & Watkins is set to take three partners from Kirkland & Ellis in Riyadh. Noor Al-Fawzan and Osama Lone, both corporate, and Manal Al-Musharaf, capital markets. All three were part of the team Kirkland used to open its Riyadh office in 2023, and all three had been at Latham before that. Law Middle East and Legal Business both ran it on 8 September. Neither firm had commented when it was reported, so treat it as understood rather than announced. Kirkland's Riyadh office is three years old. Losing three partners from the opening team in one go leaves a gap that takes a year to refill, and the deals those partners were on do not wait.
Mohammed Almarzouki started at Linklaters in Riyadh on 1 October as a corporate partner, from Clyde & Co. More than ten years on Saudi mergers and joint ventures, qualified in Saudi Arabia, England and New York, with a spell in-house at a large Saudi company along the way. Linklaters' Saudi managing partner called it "continued investment in top-tier talent". He came from Clyde & Co, which had itself announced him as a new partner in Saudi Arabia. That is the trade now. One firm grows them, another hires them.
And in Dubai, Amani Khalifa, who led Freshfields' disputes practice for Saudi Arabia, is joining Three Crowns as a partner in the DIFC on 1 January. Arbitration only, heavy on construction and infrastructure, fluent in Arabic. Three Crowns announced it on 23 September. She also sits as a judge on Bahrain's Court of Cassation, a sign of the calibre disputes boutiques are now hiring to compete here.
Put the three together and the pattern is plain. These firms are filling Saudi gaps by hiring off each other, not by training fresh capability. The pool of partners who have actually closed Saudi deals or run Saudi hearings is small, and three of the moves above are people going back to a firm they already know. Partners rarely move alone. If you run a Riyadh team, expect calls to your senior associates this month.
For a GC the read-across is simpler. If your firm's Saudi corporate partner has just moved, your matter moved with them or it did not. Ask which. The relationship partner on a Riyadh deal is worth more to you than the letterhead, and the firms know that, which is why they are paying to move them.
In-house, Dr Amal Rakibi has joined NMDC Group, the Abu Dhabi engineering and construction group, as Group Chief Legal Officer, from Borouge. She told Law Middle East she wants the legal function to be "a true strategic partner to the business". In a group that builds the kind of projects in the next section, that is exactly the job.
Roshn, the housing developer owned by Saudi Arabia's sovereign fund, signed a preliminary agreement last week with Egypt's Talaat Moustafa Group to look at a joint venture of around 55,000 homes in Riyadh. Days later Malaysia's MRCB agreed to explore a mixed-use scheme at King Salman Gate in Makkah, worth about five and a half billion dollars, with a developer backed by the same fund. Nothing is binding yet on either. In Dubai, Meraas gave GCC Contracting a contract worth about a billion dirhams for 272 villas and townhouses at Nad Al Sheba Gardens.
"Nothing binding yet" is the bit I'd watch. Between a handshake and a spade in the ground sits a year of legal work. The joint venture agreement, the land, who pays for the roads, the building contracts, the sales contracts, the escrow rules for selling off-plan. Some of it goes to the firms. A lot of it lands on an in-house team that mostly hasn't been hired yet. I'm already being asked for real estate lawyers who have sat on the developer's side of a joint venture with a government landowner. There aren't many.
The in-house development lawyer, ten to fifteen years in, Arabic and English, who has taken a master community from the land deal through to handing over the keys. Plenty of good real estate lawyers have done the sales side, or the construction side. The developers want someone who has done both. That person usually works for a developer already, and developers pay to keep them.
DEWA has finished refinancing Noor Energy 1, the 950 megawatt solar project in Dubai, for two point seven billion dollars, ahead of schedule. Refinancings rarely make headlines. They keep project finance lawyers busy for months, and they tell you the banks are still happy to lend on Gulf power.
Huspy, the Dubai mortgage and property platform, has bought Integra Finance, an Italian credit broker, and says it will put eighty-six million dollars into Italy. The price wasn't disclosed. A Gulf start-up buying a licensed business in Europe means new regulators, new licences and a legal team that suddenly covers two continents.
A subsidiary of ADIA is backing Brixmor's 2.34 billion dollar purchase of Slate Grocery REIT, alongside Everview Partners. American shopping centres, Abu Dhabi money. Deals like that run through the investor's in-house lawyers as well as its outside counsel.
Azizi Developments, Head of Legal, Dubai. Eighteen years plus, Arabic mandatory, UAE development, construction and disputes. Past two hundred applicants in under a week. The eighteen years will thin that out fast.
Majid Al Futtaim, Legal Director, MAF Properties development. Based in Dubai, but the ad has it leading the legal work for the Egypt development business, so ask about the travel early. Twelve to fifteen years plus, Arabic and English.
Alstom, Senior Legal Counsel, Riyadh. Six years plus, Arabic and English, construction contracts and public tenders, FIDIC a plus. A good seat for a Saudi construction lawyer who wants out of private practice.
Kuwait's Ministry of Justice told a meeting of Arab judicial inspection heads in Oman on 16 September how it sees AI helping to check the quality of judgments and inspection work. A support tool, they said, not a decision-maker. Using it to check the work before letting it near the judging is the right way round.
From Legal Route's 2026 Gulf benchmark, in-house counsel in Dubai and Abu Dhabi run about AED 35,000 to 75,000 a month base, rising to AED 90,000 to 160,000 for a general counsel. In Riyadh, senior counsel run SAR 70,000 to 95,000 and a general counsel SAR 90,000 to 180,000. The full Gulf Legal Salary Guide 2026, every city and every level, is free at legal-route.com/answers. No PDF, no form.
Associates in digital and technology, and in finance and real estate, for an international firm in Dubai. A senior counsel for an investment firm in Abu Dhabi, at interview. A general counsel for a government-backed business. And a non-contentious IP partner for Saudi.
The Riyadh firms are hiring off each other now. The in-house teams for the Saudi deals get hired over the next six months, and the good people go first.
If you are weighing a move, or you are a GC with a seat you cannot fill, the Legal Route chat at legal-route.com is free and it answers straight.
- Legal Route
Nigel Byrne is Managing Director of Legal Route, a Gulf legal search and market intelligence firm in Dubai. Legal Route places general counsel, heads of legal, in-house counsel and law firm partners across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman, and publishes the Gulf Legal Salary Guide (legal-route.com/answers), the Gulf legal moves tracker (legal-route.com/gulf-legal-moves) and this weekly brief.