[Music] [Music] hello Im Ahmed Elnaggar and this is Monday Legal my guest for today is Ahmed Odeh, good morning Ahmed thank you for coming Ahmed is a generation lawyer born and raised in UAE lived here all his life handled more than 50,000 cases an expert in civil and commercial litigation and he is a famous lawyer in the UAE because of his social media presence what's your coffee black where do you sort it I usually get my coffee from some of us or the raw coffee company how did you get into the law did you get into the law as a choice or how did that start it wasn't a choice actually I never wanted to be a lawyer I wanted to be an actor and I wanted to be in entertainment anything just as far away from the corporate world as possible but uh yeah I got forced into it my father set up the firm in 1985 and as you know in Arab families you know they always tell you that the source of income is the source of your blessing and and that the uh future Generations have to you know stick with that because that's uh where we how we were all raised you know by that income I feel you man I feel you I'm I'm coming from the same background as well maybe it's a little bit different for me because I really liked it and I was so um decided to be a lawyer as well I never thought that the specialty that I would take is is where I am today so I had a completely different idea but uh but here we are so one of the most established lawyers in the UAE one of the most famous as well tell us more about this you're famous on social media how did you start that well if you want me to be really like truthful about it the way it started was when I was checking other lawyers on social media and other people that were going on social media and taking videos and that was in the early days uh late 2020 early 21 when Tik Tok was still all about music and dancing and I saw a couple of lawyers on there you know who they are and I thought hey I can do a you know a similar if not better job I can do it better I can do it better it's always like that exactly yeah since all it took at the time is just your phone really you didn't even need a microphone right I thought okay well I can do that so I just you know picked up the phone and started recording and that's how it started wow almost two years and you have so many followers people really know you and they benefit a lot from what you exactly so what I didn't realize is that the uh the following that I have are mostly within for the public community people in the sort of workingclass community that really have absolutely no idea about what their rights are uh and how to self- Advocate and they always think that they cannot protect themselves without paying a lawyer to do so and of course most of them don't really have the means to pay for uh an advocate to help them so the idea behind everything I was doing is handing the law over to them and having them to do to take matters into their own hands what you say in social media is very important that can get you in legal trouble so how do you see that in the context of Courts because you are a litigation expert you do a lot of cases have you seen someone get in trouble because of what they say online or what they post online how they put themself out there did they get to uh be in trouble at court a good question actually uh in Dubai specifically people are quite careful with what they post online so they don't they don't have a sort of a negative outlook when it comes to uh anything that they post on Instagram or or Tik Tok because people like to post about you know what they're eating where they're going it's more about show it's uh thing you know I want to show off what I'm doing yeah it gets a bit complicated when people start posting Google reviews okay uh on companies which today as you know the threshold for a Google review a bad Google review turning into something which is uh incriminating in nature is very small so you could genuinely have a bad experience with a company paid for a service or a product and and didn't uh get what you wanted and you posted a genuine Google review one star two star rating and your full experience yeah so a few years ago I had a client who was sending me all his social media posts before putting it out on Instagram it was a lifestyle focused real broker so he's putting all his lifestyle all his parties on yachs and on the desert and in parties in Dubai and because he was trying to really make a lot of show off and there was so many people involved in these posts so my job was basically clearing them so I have to see the post one day before it's posted just to say it's okay or not and even there was talk shows in in in in in Egypt where I have seen that the legal council of the TV channel attending all these uh sessions before it goes online and it was an online based shows so they put the lawyer in the room just to make sure this will go online and this will not so so you like his PR Company just making sure his act is clean exactly exactly you know it's like cleaning clearing it before it goes live your life is full of stressful work related to court hearings litigations clients who are angry clients who are having a lot of expectations at the same time you're doing a lot with the social media shooting and making videos for the public um how do you manage this kind of important days or important meetings do you have like special rituals to put yourself in a ready stage for these days actually you know someone would expect that I would say oh I do my sort of I wake up at 4:00 A.M and do my morning meditation and so on and you know read a book that is inspiring actually that's not the case I just try to wake up as early as possible and uh gear myself into Focus uh uh for work what do I have to do what do I have to say when I get um difficult interactions as you know uh lawyers we always have to have uh a lot of confrontations with clients with counterparties with our own employees people that are you know requesting all kinds of commissions bonuses and these things so I I try to get into deep focus in that sense and you know one of the things that really matter is uh dressing appropriately like when you dress really well for it like how you're dressing up right now that sort of puts my mind into gear like okay it's action time you know when you were talking exactly that what came to my mind I am ready the moment I put the tie on and that's the last step I do in the suit I'm ready I'm full geared I'm I'm on exactly the tie is that sort of thing that really like all of a sudden puts you into yes into Focus yes Ahmed now I would like to talk about something that you and me were very very familiar with but probably the the the mainstream public or the people doing business is a new word for them kyc know your client um as as a term it is quite new for many people and it's very hard for us to explain it it's not hard for us to explain it it's just important that we explain it to every single person that we're doing business with and we see that many times we have conflicts or we get clients getting into trouble and when we ask them have you done your kyc do you know your client very well they have done nothing about this so what's your opinion on that I think in general kyc has become the bane of every lawyer's existence uh previously we used to accommodate uh every client without having to question their source of income and where they're coming from but now it's become a bit different AB uh yeah my take on it is at first there was a lot of resistance from our side but now it just makes so much sense uh to to have a kyc to to get people to to understand uh that we don't accept anyone that is politically Affiliated that has any Interpol arrest warrants against them um that are you know that have done something that is you know um politically or internationally incriminating and we don't want to be associated with people like that as you know lawyers associate their reputation with the clients and the people that they have uh in their and their sort of list of clients that they work with so for us it's become a blessing it was it looked like it was a bad thing but now it's better but and also for me I oftentimes question the people that I'm meeting I don't know who where they are coming from and especially in Dubai you know people coming all from all all walks of life if they have not been referred to the firm by somebody that you trust it's oftentimes very difficult to to understand uh who they are and um and how they they were able to get any source of income for them to even pay you in the first place uh and that's also another thing like the question of whether a client will actually pay and how they'll pay I had I had also um encountered many cases where client is coming to us doing uh had a contract provided a service and they would like to file a case against the other party for um for for not paying or not uh fulfilling their obligations in the contract and when we ask them do you know this client do you have uh the license copy do you have the manager's name the full one the legal one do you have their passport copy do you have the kyc documents for them and we realize that many many companies are not lawyers as well we understand that in commercial transactions or real estate or even a graphic designer who have done job and extended time and sometimes extended money and they have no idea about their client they just saw them once or they got an email from them once and they started doing work with them we cannot even take them to court because we have no information about them 100% yes it get it gets really difficult in in this sense so that's why more and more we're pushing all our clients please do proper due diligence please do your your homework about your customers before you uh accept we've had a government compliance team come to our office and check all of our policies and procedures with regards to compliance and they asked us if we have the list do you know about the list yes the P list of course of course very serious many entrepreneurs are uh either fresh graduates or people who are young in the age people who want to drop out of uh of University and start up their own business uh people who are already in the professional field and they want to quit the job and and and and go start businesses what sort of advice you give them because I see these guys are very much eager to do business they have all the energy on the commercial side but they neglect the legal side because it's costly and it's very complex and everybody tried to avoid admitting that problems could happen and um they they they I I see it all the time I see that they say we will sort out the legal stuff later on we will meet the lawyer when we are big enough how do you see this good question uh from my take as a lawyer if you're starting out a business or you are already in business and you've tried your entire life your entire entrepreneurial life to avoid uh lawyers simply because of the fact that you either fear them or you think that too expensive my opinion on it is you should not get into business in the first place simple as that uh everybody with that has a business will at some point throughout their lives get into legal issues and that is normal and I always try to say this go going to court is normal it is a fact of life that courts exist and they've existed for thousands of years right people still act like it's something that is like abnormal and you know it's just a a a stress on them yes I understand there is an element of emotional trauma that is involved in going to court or some stress that is involved but it's not the end of the world life goes on and going having lawyers with you is part of the uh the journey just as much as account and uh real estate agents it's normal to have disputes but to avoid lawyers entirely is in my side a complete denial of of the reality of things yeah it comes to the point that a lot of entrepreneurs when I talk to them uh even especially at the beginning phase where they are trying to find out what sort of legal structure they would like to do how how how they do um Arrangements of establishing the company or company for and so on when I come and talk to them about something as simple as a shareholders agreement um guys manage the um expectations of each other as partners and they say no no no no no we're friends we're never going to fight oh no no I'll give you one better do you have a template that I could use just for like share like something really quick and brief you know like I've known this guy from University and he's okay right or I got this contract from Google I'm gonna send it to you please review it it's uh the amount of disputes that I've seen from friends that have uh over the past two years and people that have fallen out with with each other especially when they start bringing in shareholders on board it's scary yeah you know and it all starts because you know that they trust each other and so on but they don't know they've never really challenged each other what happens when the business actually grows and starts making money yeah so it's never never early to call your lawyer it's never well it can be too late it can be too late do you love your job sometimes not all the times tell me tell me about that not all the times all right sometimes you have cases that you not necessarily win and it really puts a dent on your day sometimes your entire month and you're in this business to win you're in this business to be successful and it doesn't always pan out the way you expect it you could have as you know this you can have 10 cases that you wanton any particular day but that one case that you lost is just going to stick with you takes your head away and uh no matter how many times you tell your client that there's no guarantees of a win uh it just you know it really hits you hard yeah but these things we tell to the clients just the manager expectation and it's honest to tell them that there's no guarantees because there other elements of human interaction as well and there's so many it depends uh occasions in the middle uh but sometimes you promise yourself that you're going to win because you know the business of law is not the same as as being a lawyer our employees get the benefit of being lawyers and just enjoying that sort of the that the duty that they're in whereas we we get into the business side you're actually everything you're a lawyer psychiatrist and HR Business Development social speaker and social media of course yes absolutely how do you see the future of the legal practice in the U with all the changes that's happening with all the new laws that happens every day that that that it comes into force and the the new decrees and the regularization for the legal practice itself um how do you see the the the legal practice in general the legal profession evolving in the UAE and what advice do you give to the young lawyers o uh this reminds me of a book that uh very popular one by Richard sind about uh tomorrow's lawy ERS and it talks about the commoditization of legal services and that a legal service should should turn into a product rather than just a service but more specifically in the UAE than anywhere else in the world uh speed trumps quality and a Trump's price if you are able to uh complete a task or even a case very quickly and turn it around as quickly as possible the client is willing to pay more now for that and and he's willing to offset the quality for it that is the most important thing that I could say for my for the juniors and people getting into this business the quicker that you'll be able to uh you know execute and complete tasks that's where you're going to be excelling because the client is going to respect you more don't don't forget clients are entrepreneurs for them time is the most important thing and usually uh them calling a lawyer is always a last minute uh thing like oh I forgot to call my lawyer hey can you finish this contract in yes in two hours or something right CU I got the meeting coming up or something like that it's always urgent it's always needed now now now or yeah yeah that brings me to the next question the most important word right now is AI everybody's talking about artificial intelligence and in our field everybody is scared what the artificial intelligence are going to bring on the table for lawyers or affect our job how do you see that I use AI a lot and I also push AI to my team as well and I find it to be a fantastic tool with when communicating with clients over email because as you know Microsoft co-pilot Claude chat GPT can really clean up emails and make things make things very clear between you and your and your client and the client you can see that they're also using AI in return and that's great as far as legal documentation is concerned AI tools are there and we've you know tried to demo some of them and see how they work but they're still quite on the expensive side so there's still reserved for the top tier firms because those firms have sufficient budgets for legal technology right okay where whereas for example our firms we're not willing to spend $30,000 $50,000 a year just to incorporate an AI contract management software it's not that that we need it right now right we can still sort of use use our own traditional methods but yes invariably AI is going to take over in that sense and again speed up the services and that's what the client needs that's not we need the client needs that absolutely would the AI take over lawyers are we going to see no lawyers in the future and AI is going to dominate this no the way the way I see it is that um till today and I don't think this is ever going to change people need people like and and clients that come to you and they come to your offices they're coming and there's a because a good part of why they're there is that they want to offload whatever emotions that they have any issues that they have you know bent up within them they can't offload that onto an AI system I'm going to have a question to you and I'm going to shoot the same question to chat DBT okay and see who answers it in which way and um yeah let's go all right the question will be who would win in a custody case of a dog in the UAE the one who bought the pet or the one who walks it every day the one who bought it very good in the uee the resolution of a pet custody case would likely depend on various factors and is not solely determined by who purchased the pet or who walks it daily the court would consider aspects such as welfare of the animal the ability of each party to care for the pet and the possibility the legal ownership or registration of the pet however it's important to note the pet custody laws can be complex and very widely Consulting a legal professional with expertise in local laws will provide the most accurate and who's going to ADV for such a who's going to go to court to file a case a custody case for their pet wouldn't expect that to I have you seen it happen I've not seen it happen I've seen um mediation like a handled the mediation between a div divorcing couple right and the discussions were brutal about the dog okay unbelievable that's that I understand because it the dog is part of a larger theme and that is a divorce yeah would it would it would would they take it to court in my opinion if we wouldn't have reached an agreement during the mediation definitely it would have been definitely yeah yes yes Ahmed thank you so much for coming interesting discussion I I think we're going to have uh to bring you here again because there's so many things that we need to talk about thank you very much Ahmed this is your dose from Monday legal see you next week