Career Biography

Helen Graham is recognised as an in-house legal specialist in the construction, engineering and infrastructure sectors in the United Arab Emirates. She also has broad practical experience with joint ventures, bank guarantee facilities, acquisitions, disposals and a range of commercial agreements.

Graham’s in-house career directing legal and commercial matters has given her a deep and nuanced understanding of how business is conducted in the Gulf and the priorities of regional and international companies. She also brings an in-house lawyer’s sensitivity and pragmatism to the balance between cost, time and robust evidential analysis and principle-based decision making.

Graham will be retiring in January 2026 and available to take up arbitrator and mediator appointments.

For the last 19 years, Graham has been General Counsel to the Dutco Group – an Emirati diversified Group including tier one civil and MEP contracting companies, construction technology companies, real estate developments, international oil and gas operating interests, freight & logistics, and hotel owner operators.

Prior to joining Dutco Group, Graham was a partner in the London Office of a top ten international law firm, specialising in advising on and arbitration and mediation of disputes in ship and offshore rig construction, commodity supplies and commodity trade agreements. She led full time, and project managed, the largest arbitration in London with over 28 weeks of hearing time over seven years managing a team of five barristers, multiple experts in various disciplines, and over twenty lawyers and paralegals and applying the first digitised disclosure process in the 1990s.

Admitted as Solicitor of the High Court of England & Wales, 1998 and Higher Rights of Audience as Advocate England & Wales; admitted as Barrister & Solicitor of High Court of New Zealand and accredited as a mediator with CEDR.