Dubai Law - Suddenly An Arid Area for Law Jobs

LawFuel - The Law Jobs and News Wire

The Mid-East was seen as something of a safe, lucrative haven for lawyers - no more

Dubai and the Gulf states generally had generally thought to have defied gravity in terms of the international legal jobs scene - booming economies, stratospheric salaries, fringe benefits to die for and now, oops, it seems to have finished.

"The market is a no-go zone," one recruiter said to LawFuel. "Despite what you may hear in some quarters the fact is the whole market has shuddered to a halt."

Dubai, Abu Dhabi and other regions have attracted growing numbers of lawyers from a variety of jurisdictions, including New Zealand and Australian lawyers who have either been recruited directly from home or have moved from the UK or other offices.

Trowers & Hamlins, a UK-based law firm, are the first to have announced job cuts after generating a healthy, successful business in the region for over 40 years. Seven lawyers in the Mid-East are losing their jobs, while others in the UK are also losing theirs.

Taylor Root Middle East recruitment consultant Hussein El-Zein was reported by The Lawyer as saying demand for lawyers had waned.

“Law firms are becoming more selective,” he said. “They don’t want to hire as many lawyers from Sydney or London as they used to. They’re going to focus on lateral hires from the local market, with bilingual lawyers in jurisdictions like Riyadh, where there for increased demand are less expats among the clients.”

The Mid-East has boomed in just about every area of economic activity with many of the major Magic Circle and US firms opening offices there, including Clifford Chance, Latham & Watkins, King & Spalding, Allen & Overy, Akin Gump all opening or transferring significant legal personnel to Dubai or Abu Dhabi last year.

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