Eversheds has a new boss in the region. Landmark hired its top lawyer from London. Weil Gotshal is closing. Here is what each one means if you work in Gulf legal.
Zeid Hanania takes over Eversheds Sutherland in the Middle East on 1 January. Tawfiq Tabbaa has run it for nine years and moves to run Jordan and Iraq. Hanania is a deal lawyer. He leads the corporate finance team and will now lead more than 100 lawyers. The week before, the firm moved its head of construction, Jonathan Douglas, from London to Dubai, and brought Mohamed Khanaty back as a legal director.
Eversheds is growing here, with its own people so far. If you do corporate or construction work at a rival firm, expect a call.
Landmark Group has hired Manish Yadav as chief legal officer in Dubai. He was general counsel at Terra Firma, a private equity firm in London. Before that he spent ten years at McDonald's and eight at Johnson & Johnson. He trained at Davis Polk.
One of the biggest private groups in the Gulf went to London for its top lawyer. That is the hard truth for in-house lawyers here who want the top seat. A big name on your CV still matters more than years in the region.
In Muscat, Azzan Al Yahmadi has started his own firm after 16 years in-house, in government, state companies and energy. One of his services is helping other legal teams run better. I think we will see more of that.
Weil, Gotshal & Manges is closing. Its leaders told partners on Wednesday that the firm will wind down over the coming months. Michael Aiello has already gone to Cravath with a team.
Weil shut its Dubai office in 2017 and has served Gulf clients from London since. So no office closes here. But a whole firm of lawyers now needs somewhere to go, and some of them know Gulf clients well. The firms here that call first will get them.
Habib Al Mulla and Partners has opened in Shanghai, on the 42nd floor of CITIC Square. It says it is the first Arab law firm giving business advice in China. The office serves Chinese investors coming to the Gulf and UAE companies buying from China. If you are a UAE lawyer who speaks Mandarin, you are now in demand.
ADGM Courts will start using AI before the end of the year. It will help people fill in forms and help the court check claims and draft orders faster. The Registrar, Linda Fitz-Alan, says they are going slowly because judges' decisions are involved. The court has had more than 900 cases this year. If you do disputes, expect a faster court.
Scale AI, worth 29 billion dollars, has opened at the Dubai AI Campus in the DIFC. The campus now has more than 500 companies, and the target is 1,000 by 2030. Every one of them needs contracts, data rules and a regulator handled. That is where the next in-house tech jobs come from.
A company left one confidential sentence unredacted in its own slide deck, its own estimate of what it might have to pay. The slide reached the court bundle. In Salehiya Trading v Olympus Europa, the DIFC judge called it a mistake, not a disclosure. The other side cannot use it. Check your bundle twice.
Cigna Healthcare wants a Head of Legal for the Middle East and Africa in Dubai, ten years or more: over 200 applicants in two days. Converge wants a Head of Legal in Dubai, 15 years or more: over 200 in a week. Mastercard wants a Senior Managing Counsel for regulation in the UAE: 145 in a week.
Two hundred people in two days for one job. Senior in-house roles in Dubai are not short of applicants. They are short of the right ones. That is why search exists.
These are my own searches, all live this week.
At an international law firm in the DIFC: Supervising Associate, Digital Business, 6 years or more. Associate, Digital Business, 2 to 4 years. Supervising Associate, Banking and Finance, 4 to 6 years. Associate, Debt Capital Markets, 3 to 5 years. Associate, Investment Funds, 3 to 4 years. Financial Regulation lawyer, newly qualified to 2 years.
In-house in Dubai: M&A lawyer at a real estate developer, 7 years or more.
If one of these is you, or someone you rate, write to me at nigel@legal-route.com. Everything is in confidence.
Apollo is buying a minority stake in Mubadala Capital, which manages more than 60 billion dollars. Paul Weiss acted for Apollo, Skadden for Mubadala Capital. It should close this quarter. Funds and M&A lawyers in Abu Dhabi will be busy on this for a year.
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Nigel Byrne
Legal Route, Dubai
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, the Gulf legal moves tracker and this weekly brief.