As founder and senior partner at Al Tamimi & Company, the largest law firm in the Middle East, Essam Al Tamimi had played a prominent role in the Arabic-speaking legal scene for the past three decades. In 2016, he turned his attention to the lack of opportunities for younger lawyers emerging from the Arab League Member States by launching the Arab Lawyers Forum (ALF).
Since the first event, held in Morocco, the forum has doubled in size, with around 200 lawyers attending from the Arab League States and internationally. In 2020, the ALF will arrive in London, bring an even greater number of legal and business leaders together to discuss the challenges and opportunities facing the Arabic-speaking world.
Ahead of the ALF’s London debut, we speak to Essam Al Tamimi about why he’s leading the initiative to develop the next generation of lawyers in the Arabic-speaking world, and the future legal and business challenges they will face.
What are some of the challenges faced by up-and-coming lawyers in the Arabic-speaking world and how is the ALF positioning itself to help them?
The first challenge faced by younger lawyers is visibility. I am often asked where all the young Arab lawyers are. The truth is, very few young lawyers have come through the ranks. At the same time, when I travel round the Middle East I see that there are a great many high-quality, ambitious young lawyers who do not know where to start. They lack a pathway to develop their careers, to show their talent and to grow beyond their home countries. With the ALF we hope to create a platform for lawyers from across the Arab League States to exchange ideas, discuss the latest developments and, most importantly, profile the advancement and growth of the Arab legal systems.
That being said, we do not exclude more established lawyers. The primary target audience for the ALF remains senior and young lawyers. Last year’s forum, held in Rome, saw general counsel invited to attend for the first time. ALF 2020 will see an even stronger focus on this increasingly important demographic. By opening the doors to GCs private practice lawyers are able to hear first-hand from the in-house community regarding the dynamics between GCs and law firms.
Why have you chosen London as the venue for a conference focusing on the future of Arabic-speaking law and lawyers?
Hosting the forum internationally exposes Arab lawyers to new and different ways of doing things, and hosting it in London presents a wonderful opportunity for lawyers from across the Middle East, particularly young lawyers, to sit side-by-side with lawyers from the UK and debate their common futures as legal professionals. There is a large Arab legal and business community in London. A number of GCC countries have been doing business with the UK for many years and many investments taking place across the [Middle East] have a nexus to the UK. English remains an extremely important language when it comes to doing business in the region, and the London legal profession has a dominant place in the Middle East, both in terms of the large number of UK-qualified lawyers operating there and the large number of UK-headquartered firms that have a presence there.
It is also a good opportunity for lawyers from the UK to meet the up-and-coming generation from the Middle East. International law firms in the region are increasingly looking to hire Arabic-speaking or bi-lingual lawyers, and hopefully through this platform we will provide people with an opportunity to make those contacts.
In what sense does the Arabic-speaking world form a coherent legal and business environment?
In some ways lawyers in the Middle East are facing very different issues from those in Europe, and within the Middle East the Levant and North African markets are facing different pressures to those in the UAE or Saudi Arabia. However, there are common issues facing all lawyers globally. For example, the disruptions that we are seeing today in artificial intelligence, in the use of IT and in the use of social media means law firms will face almost certain disruption in the next ten years. In terms of business development, marketing, and client development there will be common changes across world and therefore across the Middle East. Further, a rapidly changing landscape in the Middle East is driving a market that brings both the potential for big rewards and pitfalls for law firms in the region. It is important for young lawyers from across the Arabic-speaking world to understand the stakes here.
Arab lawyers need to be prepared, to learn, and to expect what they will be seeing in the future. They will either be prepared for this or unprepared for this and they will face the consequences of either. It is very important that the Arab legal community has the opportunity to discuss areas of interest within the markets but also further afield in order to help adapt to global changes.
I also think it is important for both UK-based and Arab lawyers to take the region as a whole because high growth markets such as Egypt and Morocco will have a growing significance for lawyers and businesses across the Middle East in coming years.
It is true that more traditional markets remain strong. For example, Al Tamimi & Company has had busy practices in Saudi Arabia and the UAE dealing with both domestic and international for several years. But the Egyptian market has been an extremely busy market and our office has been very successful there in terms of work generated there and investments coming in to Egypt. Things are moving there internally and there is big interest from both GCC and non-GCC investors. With the growth of the young generation there is a need for investment in many North African countries, and we hope to help young lawyers position themselves to capitalise on this demand.
Has the initiative received any official backing from governments across the Gulf?
In my experience, anything that has official backing tends to focus too much on those in high-ranking positions and miss out on the substance. The forum has no official backing and no official status. It is run by a volunteer force of private practice lawyers and in-house counsel who are interested in learning from each other and passing on this learning to the next generation in the Middle East.
Among other things, ALF London will focus on the challenges facing family-owned entities in the Middle East. Why is this so significant for a younger generation of lawyers?
While regulatory regimes have evolved and developed in every sector and area, the major regional players continue to be family-owned businesses. Some of those family businesses have structured themselves extremely well, have a succession plan for the business and organise themselves along the lines of a public company with very good corporate governance policies. Many others have not. Therefore, from a legal point of view, the succession planning and continuation of these businesses could be at risk.
Family businesses are going to have to confront the issue of succession planning to survive. For the Middle East as a whole, it is vital for family-owned businesses to address how they can create stability in their management structures that allow the business to continue successfully through an event like a family dispute or the death of a founder. These are very sensitive subject to discuss but it is critically important for the Middle East that these issues are discussed and the legal implications are planned for.
Another crucial theme for young lawyers in the Middle East is the rapidly developing arbitration landscape. How will ALF address this?
There is now a total political commitment to arbitration in the Middle East. We can see this in the laws, regulations, arbitration centres and their governing rules, and also in the growing interest in the subject at university level. Governments and business have realised that they have more to lose than gain by resisting arbitration. Ultimately, awards get enforced and the resisting country or entity will get a bad reputation internationally. That has been a push factor. But the political will to support arbitration also developed because of a number of pull factors. Countries realised their court systems could not cope with complex cases or that these court systems were not strong enough to attract foreign investment. As such, the political decision made by governments of the Middle East to support arbitration is based on the belief that arbitration will attract investment and help judicial systems become stronger.
The only thing lacking in the region is skilled arbitrators. In the Middle East arbitrators are young, they are very few and tend not to be as skilled [as their counterparts in the UK]. It is not something you can build overnight. It requires time, training and commitment. With London still seen by many as the leading centre of commercial arbitration globally, the ALF will look to help address this situation by bringing some of the City’s leading arbitrators and counsel to discuss the future of arbitration in the Middle East, looking in particular at how Arab lawyers can help bridge the gap between civil and common law traditions.
Aside from supporting the ALF, what can the wider legal community can do to support the next generation of Arab lawyers?
Very few law firms in the Middle East link what happens during the education of law students to what happens in law firms. There is little communication between law firms and law faculties, apart from isolated initiatives. As a result, many law school graduates have academic skills and theoretical knowledge, but are not acquainted with a new style of law education, and some of their education is outdated.
Law schools in the Middle East need to revamp their education system, and law firms can play a big part in encouraging this. Universities need to teach students how the law has evolved and responded to modern transactions, particularly in the area of contract law, which has evolved in relation to capital markets, banking transactions, information technology, media, and intellectual property. In addition, some legal systems have bridged civil and common law principles – civil law systems have added common law principles and vice versa. The education system in the region has not grasped this development. What can lawyers do to change this situation? Lawyers can first of all create links between law faculties and their law firm. Secondly, lawyers can enhance their training of young lawyers internally.
The Arab Lawyers Forum London will take place on 23 and 24 March 2020. To register your interest please visit www.arablawyersforum.com