[Music] good morning with another session and episode for Monday Legal today our guest is Ammar El Banna, Amar is the managing partner of Khodeir & Partners UAE he is a certified lecturer and trainer with the Legal Affairs department and he is a certified Mental Health First aider good morning Amar good morning Ahmed how are you today I'm great thank you for having me such a lovely setup uh unusual for lawyers to sit down and chitchat so yes very pleased to be here it's part of the Monday on Lego so excited to talk to you actually thank you very much it's an honor to have you here the first time I met Amar uh it was me attending a lecture that I selected and paid for with the V legal Affairs Department part of the continuous uh legal training that we have uh for the lawyers here in the UAE and the second time I met Amar was on a beach destination while he was in his Nomad legal phase and later on we uh we developed a very nice close business uh relation ship and personal friendship as well so I'm very happy and honored to invite you today to Monday legal yes true how did you find the session by the way can you remember it no I remember very well it was a labor law session and it was one of the very very informative and easy to understand uh sessions and it was an English language there was a very diverse uh group of people it was one of the very highly attended ones yeah uh I I tell you I I enjoyed it so much that I immediately jump into I like I would like to know this guy he's younger than me and he much smarter than me I like the way he talks and explains stuff and I enjoy it that's why I approach you that day that's great no I thanks a lot it means a lot to me actually yeah I tried to make them engaging I tried to you know it's part of the CPD as you as you mentioned and I tried to make them engag because we're lawyers you know really the content of of of the law so and I sat down and say okay I'm not going to talk about article said article this says that article this says no how can I make it more engaging how can I make it more interactive and uh it's good to hear some of the positive feedback yes it was absolutely a pleasure to have you that day and and to listen from you I'm going to start by asking the same question that I ask everybody just out of curiosity not necessary to our discussion today what's your coffee coffee uh just a black coffee just a black coffee just a black coffee coffee black coffee and it's interesting because now I do one cup coffee a day oh wow I I do three I try to limit myself no no anxiety level go through the roof so one cup a day and that's it I try to back in the day was like three four but uh no if I want to go fancy I can go like with a plant-based coconut you know what my choice always go with the black coffee okay yeah no for for me I rarely go for more than three usually two of them are espressos and uh and if I have enough time to sit in one very long meeting that I have to really enjoy then I will go for a black coffee doesn't affect your hand shaking or your sleep at night that's why I limit them to three yeah yeah but throughout the day you know with long meetings and sometimes long hours trying to get together all my thoughts into one big contract of one big uh uh piece of work in general I need I need a cup of coffee well my friend this is my life with shows I try to limit it I'll take your advice to limit that to to to one yeah I mean yeah I mean for me I start to listen to How I react to Coffee back in the days I wasn't listening to my body how I react to it but now I can feel it no because what we do is very stressful can be very stressful right and coffee increases that one of the things I've learned from uh the the mental health stay the course is that coffee does increase your anxiety and sometimes because we're too caught up in our life we just don't listen enough we we don't notice these things how about you react to coffee it's caffeine so um and what end up happening sometimes we are left with the caffeine in our brain generating ideas right left and center and you can disconnect sometimes we're going to go back to that because this is a very interesting topic as well but I would like that you start by introducing yourself I made a very quick brief introduction but I would like to hear from you how did you start with the law and where and you know walk me through the whole uh Journey until you uh you are here today withan Partners UAE sure sure once again thank you for having me I'm Amar as ahed said I'm the managing partner of Partners UAE we are a firm of almost now 45 um individual uh we're full full-fledged fir uh my background I studied in uh in Egypt Alexandria uh University of Alexandria faculty of law um and I started my career right from the beginning in Dubai I joined had Partners as a fresh graduate that was in 2008 sorry 2009 when everyone was leaving the country you know the financial crisis hit in that around that time right Hadi was hiring uh a fresh uh graduate litigator because litigation was just kyrock I remember that time we were actually the only industry busy we had so much of conflict at that time it's crazy yes I remember one of our clients came to us and he had more than 30,000 uh forclosure matter to advise and act on believe it or not so anyway started that with had stay with them for nine years um and then I moved to Stevenson Howard I had a great time there lived stayed there for 2 years then I had a family situation I had to go back to Egypt and then I was fortunate enough to set up my own firm concept legal for a couple of years and during that time K and partners we just had a discussion I said hey you would you like to come and join us as off counil uh and I could see the dynamic working they were happy for me to run my practice in the uee I was running it remotely uh I only travel if I have to uh and he said you know what you can collaborate together if you have clients that need service in Egypt we can work with you if we have a client that needs International uh kind of service you can we can we can work together and we see how this goes they're there for two years and we love each other the DNA was very similar the dynamic was great um I'm I'm I'm very pleased and blessed to be we working with very similar uh Partners to me we share the same values and this is very important and it came to a stage and I had a chat with Muhammad and he said listen come on what's Happening Here We love you you love us let's move in let's merge your practice with us and be one under one umbrella and we said partners and he said go manage the firm build the brand there and here we are so from day one or overnight I would say I ended up with amazing team uh amazing Partners uh 45 individual I'd like to say 32 lawyers maybe the numbers mammad might give me some hard time because there has been some hiring recently in Egypt so now the offering expands from only litigation to arbitration I work with Ahmed he needs the arbitration field the daughter of mammad other partn so over one night you you have this offering to existing clients and it's it's it's interesting Journey it's something new for me it's a new job got to tell you this uh uh I I get the chance not to work with younger generation and they look at me a certain way and I in my head what are you doing this why are you looking to me like that I have no idea what I'm doing I'm still it's a new job I got to tell you managing managing a firm it's it's a new job and uh when you when you have a small practice what you do is that you bring in the the work you do the work you build for the work you collect your money you do it again yes that's pretty much okay that's the cycle of it right yes but now when you when you take this Ro okay what's this what am I doing here completely different yeah yeah but I'm glad I'm glad I'm working with Muhammad such lovely people amazing team of course and they've been doing it for so many years so working with them is just such such an amazing uh thing to have I go to say so that's the story and not that's very good I want you to go back a little bit to your upbringing and to the start before you even start with the legal career because I know some stories but I would like that you highlight sure a little bit because your story for me is a bit inspiring and please I think sharing it is very beneficial I don't think it's inspiring really I think it's just a story um so what happened is I I I grew up in Saudi um in a in a small village and that was in the 80s 87 1987 I was born in Alexandria then I was taken maybe one two months to to to to Saudi and my father was the first the first dentist to get hired by the government there my mom was the first psychiatrist is she's a professor in Psychiatry and uh my mom tells me the stories that it was a tiny village and there was like um an exhibition next to the clinic that the government has newly delivered and built and and we just had this small uh like an annexure to it you know but outside of that it was just nothing and the S is it's said the place called bisha the S called Bish okay which means like bisha there's no life in B oh wow and that was in the 80s Believe It or Not So yeah so there was a very humble upbringing very humble upbringing I I didn't have much to communicate with I didn't have much to interact with the education system uh was very basic I went to government School Arabic I didn't speak English I thought I was 12 so I lived in Saudi for 10 years and again Saudis in the 80s is nowh near what we see and here now have you been to Saudi recently yes yeah yes whatever you saw is nothing didn't exist right so so and then I moved to Egypt uh when around Middle School I think I was 11 or something and then I coming to Egypt was like well because you know Egypt such has such we're such a massive population we have such a wide society and you get from very liberal to very conservative and in the middle there's like a lot of categories of people right yes in Saudis was a very conservative community that I was part in and then I was like what's happening here and I didn't speak the language when I see the language I mean the Egyptian slang the dialog you know yes I remember I was speaking Saudis even until now when I speak Arabic people confuses me that I'm not Egyptian I'm Saudis or I'm because my tongue still have it believe it or not so and then and then again when I moved to Egypt I um continued my studies in in Arabic again public schooling and uh I start to consider speaking English around 13 14 and uh that was uh I think through uh self thought most likely was was through movies and and songs and you remember McQ not really so maybe maybe you younger than me I know there was this Chad before WhatsApp you know back in theq is it is it McQ IQ there IQ and there is another one called MC can't remember okay that's yeah you go to you don't see pictures nothing you go to like a just a window dark window and you start typing talk to people randomly and you only see they usern name yeah you know where they're from it was a code with numbers I guess yes yes and there was this distinguished voice remember this when we had we had to put the wire to the I think it was I IQ take your word for that's what I remember yeah I used to do that a lot to to kind understand the dialogue and I that's how I actually learned English uh then and then I went to L and here we are and I started my career actually interesting you talk about that I started my career at had different partners as a cold clerk all right so I used to be the guy who takes the submissions the pleadings uh prepare them and go meet the local Council the local MR Advocates and just attend the hearing follow up on the court decision come back with the update to the for the client follow up on the procedural side of things filing cases following up and and and the procedural side of of litigation and then I used to hate it but it's only when I accepted it cuz I thought I'm a lawyer doing here what's this I remember and head of such a great firm to kind of see this resentful young guy like of course you could see that right you now you now you have a very successful business M you know when you see younger younger lawyer you can identify and you can see right so I'm pretty much know that I was like this guy um but it was Richard Briggs my one of my mentors actually that guided me and I took me under his and it all supported me but that's how I started and when I accepted that this is my role now I started to look at it more substantively I start to understand okay I'm going to use this time to understand how the code system work how from the day you find your case until you get your money from the execution all the way from the court of first instance to the court of appeal to the court of cation I want to get it I want to understand K you not so I moved from resenting what I'm doing to I moved to um to live in I used to live in the greens back then and then one year later I moved to UDA which is three minutes away from the court because I knew all the judges of the Court officials left there so I became friends with judges who used to go to the prayers together play football together and we had chance hey you I was the young guy you know I also know my boundaries I'm talking about particular cases but we talk about the system and and they they give me tips and tricks how to track how busy they are how annoying lawyers can be very interesting and and and and I start to love it and I start to understand and to date what I've done in my start of my career helps me dramatically and clients see C see the value that I bring in because I look at the bigger picture from day one I don't get uh drawn to the the core of the meta without understanding okay where's the money how can we enforce how can we start how can we expedite the process how can we prolong a little bit to some some attachment order for a little bit for the Cent to get the money out of the system whatever and that helps me a lot so uh and then and then I moved from being a co- clerk to an associate senior associate with Hadi I'd like to claim I was the youngest senior associate again had might come back and sue me for unaccurate information but I think I think I was the youngest back then uh and then um Stevenson how came along and uh I moved from Hadi to Stevenson how had obviously is such such a great fir or a regional level Stevenson how does that and move to the next level as an international firm such a lovely firm to work with great people people oriented and that was always important to me and it was good to me to understand the letting go start because in Hadi we in Dubai office more than 100 lawyer 80 lawyer and things work the system works how we do things work client love us and we achieve things okay now I'm going to platform International platform they do and they do things differently yeah and you might and at this stage I'm almost I was what 32 I can't remember maybe 31 I can't remember exactly that was in 2018 you you start to become a little bit senior and you have your own mind and thinking right you think why do you do it this way this way it works and it's easy but then you have to learn okay I need to empty my cup yeah this way works but these guys do it this way I came to their house I need to adjust to this so that was interesting uh did that for two years and then I had a family situation I I had to leave UAE to the care of a family situation um and then only then I was blessed with abundance in life to see that actually there's a different way of being successful and establishing plal and the traction that I got from my client he followed me natur I think we can touch on that later on the discussion but a second nutshell of of my background very nice the reason I mentioned earlier that this is an inspiring story because it is of my opinion that you have you are a managing partner today uh bilingual capacity and with with a with a big firm a growing firm with a fantastic team at your age which is closer to my age don't get me wrong uh it it is significant and considering what you what you told us about that bringing when did you start speaking English and how did you start with a local firm here that uh as as as a clerk and then you turn up uh in few years to be a legal trainer someone who is certified in the mental health and someone who is an expert in litigation and now you're a managing partner I would like to understand how did this happen and when did it happen you know tell me for example when did you switch from being such an expert in litigation and at the same time you started giving uh training uh I don't think I have an answer to that degree but I think what I can share with you in a hindsight uh is that I really cared about what I do and uh for me uh I'm a very passionate person when it comes to helping people and it's something I think it's that's I think one of the main reason I chose law was was was for that there's money in it obviously of course also Prestige that comes with it right but the core belief system that I have is is people I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm such a people oriented and I I I connect with people and I I I I can feel them and I I I'm very curious about people like when I sit down with you I'd like to know about you and I I'm a good listener I'm really telling me more about you and the more you tell me the more I feel okay I I I get to know you right and lawyers fundamentally do that lawyers fundamentally help people I mean who are service providers right and sometimes we forget about that right and it's about the submission it's about lending the B CLI it's about the deal in your in your world like closing a deal what when is the next deal the contract But ultimately if you think about it we we we're service providers and we provide these services to people who are in neat and sometimes they need someone they can rely on and help and I always had in my mind um and that and and also I'm also I'm a caregiver naturally I'm a father of three boys and uh although what I do now as a managing partner I I I I I get the chance to work with the younger generation uh and I get to deal with them and there's definitely science behind it how to manage team and how to there's books you can read about it right um the feedback I've been receiving and I'm very conscious of that as well the feedback I've been receiving from the team and from our brilliant CEO uh is that I said listen I sit down with my coo said listen tell me how am I doing with the team uh sometimes they don't talk and I want to know how am I doing with them and the feedback comes to the extent uh I think is accurate is that they love it they learn and they enjoy it and they find a lot of value to it and I I don't I don't know how I'm doing it I don't know how I actually do it I don't sit down and think about okay this is how I'm going to do it I'm G to say this I'm going to do that I think something comes to me naturally as a caregiver as a father uh and something I realized recently to be honest I told you I walk into this not knowing exactly the job it's a new job that I'm learned so I think if I if I can say something about how this happened I think uh um I care about about people a lot and that shows and clients know this about me uh I care about the people that I work with in my team and and that's the starting point I'm also a go-getter by nature and by Nature I just go and get things and uh uh yeah uh people sometimes and I also don't give myself enough credit sometimes so when you come and tell me ask me this question I genuinely don't know what's what's what's that big thing that I've done that you might think inspiring that I judge right part part of the inspiration is being really humble about it it's not me I promise you I promise you not to be humble sometimes like like people say why you speak very good English okay and you you've never spoken until you was 12 and then just I don't know you know what I mean like I you don't give that much credit to yourself sometimes I think sometimes that help as well I I I think it's very important as well understanding is that not so many people have the maybe maybe they they have the skills but not the will to to actually get go and get it as you as you just said like you decided at the age of 12 to change the to build up a completely new skill and now it's an essential important skill and without it you cannot be a managing partner or you cannot be a bilingual lawyer you cannot be a legal trainer and cannot be advocating for mental health for example and because you're living in a country that people coming from all over the world and and probably more than 50 60% of it they don't speak the word of Arabic and and switching from here to there is very significant when you do it at at this age so I find it inspiring one of the things now as you talk like I promise you I didn't have any answers like as you talk now you reminded me of something I always thought about when I was in had if I could see so had is a is a fully bilingual full service local Law Firm that does international standard practice right so I always worked with International lawyers from the UK from the US from Australia from New Zealand South Africa as well and I also worked with the Arabic lawyers Egyptians Jordanian Sudanese emiratis and so on and I always was interested about the bigger picture and I could see how the English lawyers or the Western lawyers operate and how the Arab Victor is operate and how these guys look at these guys and how these guys look at these guys and I always think oh my God is there such a gap in the market first of all they're not talking as much as they should they only talk on the matter but no one really understand the story behind this gentleman and he doesn't know about this gentleman much Beyond so the thinking is not m you know they're now in one they are now coming in one place in time but I promise you they haven't acknowledged the fact that I came from the West you came from the East and now here let's know each other and see how can we actually collaborate and Magic happens when you actually think about it this way yeah and I could see the the Gap in the market as a bing lawyer who can actually advance and do what the English lawyers do again I'm not going to compete with the uh with the with the solicitors and barers that I know I know my place in the market but you can to a degree have the skills that to communicate not with the English language per se but with the international language if you know what I mean English is one thing knowing what your client think what's the needs it's a different language yes and the the English is different than the the Americans the the British the the the European you know that for sure and then you know the Arabic how do you how do you operate and then I say okay I can do this part of the job very well I know Arabic I can draft I can research I can know the issue I can solve the problem and I know how to speak to these guys and this Gap I can bridge in the market and that was very useful in my my and this is something I always advocate for for the younger generation that listen there's a mar there's a place for you in the market you just need to do these things to Excel and go and grab it you know so that also helps sometimes you started your career basically in litigation so courts were part of your uh legal upbring let's put it this way and uh as a litigator that's your uh how you identify in the legal field let's put it this way and uh so so tell me about your experience in litigation like with what I know very well that you have handled uh a lot of employment matters complex ones big ones yeah and um I would like to to learn more about what what cases did you handle the most of what you enjoy you know uh I can say I can share some of the stuff uh uh that we come across before I jump into it I find litigation very important and I find lawyers must and should should and must have to a degree a knowledge of what's happening in litigation because law for me what's law in your opinion what is law regulations that governs how people deal with each other that's exactly how I say it but the problem with that these regulations is only theoretical until you see them in practice right and you've been here for many many years you've seen some of the Articles we come across are inactivated or not practically we don't see it practically happening in front of us so so you can read the law you can have a PhD in the law but if you don't understand how a judge how an authority how a Ministry is going to enforce uh this law I don't think you know enough right and and that's one of the things also I've discovered during my time had if when I see the corporate lawyers is how they look at the context of the law and they would have a very impressive interpretation to the context of the law something I would never think of actually but in my world this is completely far from what is the actual interpretation of it and the answer to the inter the answer to that question how is this law getting implemented is not your mind it's not my mind it's the judge mind it's the judge mind yes right and like I told you I spoke with some of the judges and we we had used to have chats about some of the unusual interpretation they would we would conclude some Sometimes some occasions that uh yeah this application is is is is is is unusual I can think of discussion I had uh with his Excellency I mentioned his name he used to be part of the head of the court of casai and there was a very odd I'm sure you know the the rule in in the UAE bounce checks yeah who's when you sign a check for a company as a as a general manager you are personally criminally liable for that so this is if if this check bounced you now expose yourself to a a bounce check criminal complaint right so it's the company's bank account that was a check that was made for the for the company's obligations but you signed it so what is the crime there the crime there is um I want to escape my mind now so breach of trust not breach of trust Escape my mind uh fraud check you're a fraud yes yeah it's a fraud yeah it's actually uh drawing a check without insufficient funds which means a fraud yeah so this is a FR so the idea is that you knew so the thinking behind the thinking behind the unpacking of it something I love to do about the to understand the rules right is is that you when you signed this check you knew that there was no cash in the bank account yeah here's the Dilemma you're the managing partner of a firm you sign a check because you have an ongoing obligation for the next five years right one of the suppliers is a due a check of let's say 1 million you did the check 2023 okay 2030 sorry 2030 that check is due and every year there's a payment needs to be done according to an agreement you signed when you were on your job the money was there the was rich there was money on the account then you resigned you left the company right the check is still there 10 years later 5 years later the check get bounced guess who's liable the one who signed it the one who signed it you go and say no I left the company I'm not the manager anymore you can even say when I was manager I can prove to you that I was fully aware that this bank account had enough money to uh make this pain yet you still Li You' be still liable even if the signatory on the bank account have changed there you go and just in the history you were once at a at a few years back the signatory on the account and it I've seen cases in this regard and that's probably why the law have changed exactly hisorical case you're right yeah spot so an example like that you and I would think as the great lawyers can think and say this is unfair you can advise this manager who came to you now who left now who lives in Hawaii in short and come with a question you can tell him does I can doesn't make sense for you to become live but actually he is live how would you know check the practicality of the courts what does the court apply yeah so and I always thought that you need to have an exposure of how these articles are getting interpreted by the by the judges yeah so how would it end up in the hands of the judge and what he is uh is is going to decide is probably one of the main reasons I think uh corporate lawyers and litigation lawyers have to be speaking all the time because we are drafting the contracts that will One Day land on your desk and you will take it to court so if if we don't communicate and we understand each other and understand how this would be treated in court because the theoretical part of the applying the the the the the law into the contract is is not not the only aspect and I agree with you I'm glad the corporate lawyer you mentioned that because Muhammad who's your peer as well he's you know Muhammad is a big name in the Corp field and the IPO and the m&a and he also headed the gaffi who was the CEO of gaffi in Egypt he sent me a meme when I joined and I tried to before we finish show it to you but something in the same lines as okay our contracts corporate lawyers do is the work fortigates for the future yes exactly exactly at the moment we acting for a massive dispute and there's a there's a corporate question that comes up as a litigator we don't dabble Muhammad if you go please advice tell me how can this and this is my strategy I would say this is the case strategy we want to achieve this this and that there's a corporate element to it on a shareholder level that might impact the defense can you please look at the documents here's the Moa shareholder agreement here's the I don't want to get involved yeah give me some answers but obviously we don't do that but we then he check it and we talk and we discuss and this is very very important yeah the continuous communication between both of us in in in this regard is is is very important I do not think I um I I I would trust the contract that is drafted 100% without picking up the phone talking to my litigation friends and what what what happens in this case or maybe uh doing some research on my own just to understand how the court would look look at this good 10 years down the line just to advise the client and I know very well that our practice is protected we are insured we are uh working with our best knowledge but at the end if you're honest enough and you want to put your face behind your work you have to uh do enough homework to before you advise your clients well we're here you have my number right yes yes yes absolutely I'm going to take you back to one of the points that you mentioned because it trigger something in in in my head um a lot of transactional uh especially in the MMA uh business uh with with the corporate lawyers get involved in they are common L qualified and common law trained and since we're living in the UAE or in the whole uh area in the Middle East is relying on civil law uh litigation civil law trained uh Council how do we how how does does does that work from your perspective because you receive a lot of litigation work that comes based on contracts as prepared uh by common law uh lawyers oh man I'm glad you asked this how much time we have right interesting and yeah um before you answer you I think it's important that and again I I can get a little bit philosophical here because coming to your definition of the law set of regulations that regulates people's behavior and interaction right and then you think okay if you think about us as human being it's we have the same set of problems in every sector so let's say let's say let's say on an employment let's say you have an employer employee in the UK in Europe in the US in the Middle East in the GCC right the same company had almost the same objective employes have the same objectives however and they most likely have the same set of issues let's say an employeer I want to fire an annoying employee it's the same issue a problem that the employer have okay think about it why do you have it's the same problem in different jurisdiction why do you have different rules that regulates the same problem cultural differences difference in drafting the and in in the Articles of the law itself from one jurisdiction to the other sometimes in the same jurisdiction but in in in different types of companies or it's exactly that it's different jurisdiction different culture you said that's the key word it's different laws for sure but then why the laws are different it's the same we're the same human it's the culture that says the law is different so actually law is a reflection of people's culture and background and when you go a little bit deeper than that you understand a lot about the country by understanding the laws in the US you want to fire someone Ahmed you find or you go you come to Egypt it's a little bit okay can the law says that but the practice says that I don't know what to do in the GCC okay most of the GCC countries is that okay you can fire you going to pay a compensation of x amount of money and that's how it goes go to France it's a nightmare to fire some you can't they ask why look at the US it's a capitalism they care about what the Money Follows and employers represent capitalism so we got the laws would support the the employer all the way French society socialism they follow it so they support the social people and they they take care of the their Nation they make sure that the people are happy in the GCC the majority of the of the employees are expent so they want to attract them they also want to make the employer happy so let's find something in the middle you can fire not like France but also not not like the US you got to pay something to compensate the guy I want to make you happy as an individual so you can come and bring your family and I also want you as an entrepreneur as a as a as an investor to also be happy and come and invest with money and this is really what the law is about it's understanding that and sometimes we forget about this coming to your English law point oh man the amount of contracts I've seen English law governs why what is this what does it even mean right so in in a transaction Muhammad K should have actually come and answer your question he'd be very suited because he loves it as a as a transactional lawyer he he advises his clients International clients sometimes that let's tailor it let's not take the especially in the banking Finance let's not take it as is and apply it let's see so we have no problem applying English law Concepts to start with right it's fine but let's localize why it's not because egotistical reasons sometimes it's not I'm going to but other times is that it wouldn't work you wouldn't navigate through this is a five years contract obligation you need to make sure that whatever obligations and whatever specific performance flaws you had whatever liquidation damages flaws you agreed on are applicable and enforceable and this is something sometimes Brothers forget about but um having said that I work out with Al no evered and and and her Smith and the international Dentin as well and we have this discussion have this dialogue and and when we see an Arabic lawyer like myself like yourself who is a bit International not OT testical and he doesn't want to apply the U just because that no actually understand your clients and I know what he wants to do it's this is a more comfortable and more familiar law for him to apply but why then you have a discussion then you understand the why what's really he wants to protect and then you you know what how about this yeah and then you can tailor it in a way that satisfy your clients but also you can produce a document that actually can get enforced if things go wrong so yeah that's very uh very lightning I think it's it's it's it's clear and I I had I had the same experience in in many transactions and I think it's a the communication between the the Professionals in this sense is very important that's why in many occasions we ask for a lawyer's only um meeting so we don't want the client in the room we just want the lawyers to be in the room let's discuss this let's fit fix this between us and then then we will get back to you we will tell you what this we decide in the end going back to the labor law because I I know for a fact that you have been uh recognized by a lot of peers in the in the industry that you're a labor law expert what um what are the trends right now what what what's happening in the in the market right now because we've seen the new law that that came in force few years back and there's a lot of changes from the um um we don't have anym uh unlimited contracts we uh we are applying new set of rules for the the UAE in general tell tell us about it yeah so remember the ruler told you about employees getting compensated for losing the job yes this is now gone disappeared this disappeared now but uh it has been replaced by the unemployment scheme funny enough actually one of my clients has where is The Mastermind behind the unemployment scheme made a lot of money out of that uh but you see the country is trying to very smart I found the U government very very smart they always try to um find and look for smart solutions to always do two things main attract people to come and live in the U look at this I mean can the camera shows the view here like look the marina here that we're looking at 10 years ago maybe more than 10 years maybe 15 years ago wasn't as it is right yeah and these buildings require people to be to be living in them right so how can you attract the people very smart so the government think how can we attract the people so by by taking the compensation out of the law that was a bit okay so then emplo employers can abuse employees and just they can just leave with no compensation I can fire tomorrow without any sequences but now you see the unemployment scheme coming place to a degree compensate you for the loss of your job you know so so that's interesting but an interesting uh uh um Trend I wouldn't call it Trend it's it's actually I'd like to believe it's it's a it's a groundbreaking case that we currently we recently acted on in the oil and gas sector we were advising and acting for one of the biggest oil and gas companies in the world and there was a massive um how can I say this in a uncontroversial way Noy directors let's say in the most same way and I've been um orchestrating a shamp scheme uh for many many years and um resulted in $114 Million worth of uh breach of trust that was embezzled of company the way the scheme has been orchestrated like it blows my mind you can't put them together you can't like the investigation team spent enormous amount of time to try to understand how the scheme works so now we understand we we believe and we know for a fact that these guys were stealing our money but then how how do you convey that to the a police officer or to a public prosecution officer it's it's a challenge because it's the way again I mean these the white color crime type of cases no one pulls cash out of drawer put in Pocket anymore right yeah we couldn't link the Sham scheme where were talking about inflated prices sham companies that family of these guys owned they charge triple and sometimes quadruple the amount of Norman market price to the compan so you you could argue it's all commercial disputes all done through contracts commercial contracts you can never pinpoint them um we tried to get them in the civil court and we failed in the court at first instance in the court of appe that's just like scratching my mind and that was the benefit of me working with my English peers understanding what an injunctive relief is understanding how the DFC court operates and how the UK system operates and this is actually quite interesting you can ask a court to oblige you defendant to produce documents that actually can find them guilty that's quite unheard of in the Civil jurisdiction doesn't make sense to us as well the concept as you might know the claimant is responsible for proof proving the case proving the case yes if you don't prove your case you don't have a case right exactly I can't oblige you ahed show me that email that will find you guilty no so no go pro the case right that's the con it's your liability you you have to do it it's your job and by the way there's a lot of thoughts that comes behind that but I'm not going to for you yeah because I thought about it a lot what's fair is these guys the west or the East and there's very very interesting thinking behind why privacy matters in the Middle East and why maybe openness is is unfairness that's being educated in this way in the west but I'm not going to get into that yeah so I thought you know let me see then okay that's interesting too I would need this mechanics as an injunctive relief to apply it in the Civil Court how can I do that so I started going back to my rout when I was a co- clerk I said you know what let me go and open the C procedure I start reading into it and I see this article that gives me some light that I can do you know let me try I I was I was I I was faced with a lot of uh resistance from my peers not to do that that's not going to work you're going to embarrass us what's this and I said listen that's the B says that I'm going to ask the DU qu of appeal to join the banks of these individuals International Banks I'm going to ask the court to oiz the bank to submit the personal bank statements from the beginning the scheme starts up until to dat we're talking about 15 years of bank statements you wouldn't believe it the court accepted it and we got the bank statements it was uphill battle it was a blood bath of the lawyers right the client couldn't believe it we had the bank stat and it wasn't like bank statement the one that you would get from your in your email a detailed one because we want to understand like and we managed to find one trace of uh link between the shamp scheme and these individuals so that was very interesting uh case to uh to witness I to say one of the very interesting things that I wanted to ask you about what uh brought you in the the the mental health and I know you've been U making a lot of speeches in in this regard and you are officially uh recognized as a mental Health First aider what does it mean what what is a mental health first aider yeah yeah I mean who lawyer talking about mental health right so first of all I'm not a psychologist I'm not a psychiatrist I'm not a therapist I'm an attorney uh so I'm not advising people I'm not providing advices I'm just um I had a personal story with mental health I I had a family situation that really got into me and I made me unable to function as I should and and it brought a lot of perspective to me I have to say it wasn't easy at all and I had to go and reflect on my career and I realized that I was running on empty for a long long time and alhamdulillah I got out of this and I start to feel better and I I I start to go and see a therapist and I'm as you could imagine from my upbringing talking to a therapist about my feeling no no if I if I had a headache or maybe I'm someone like broke my arm my father would tell me go a nap you wake up better you know like very traditional man I'm a very traditional man so talking about mental health and talking about emotions is is is is no way and you're a lawyer too so but but Subhan Allah what happened to me and my personal um uh I'm not going to call it SB back it's unfortunate thing that happened uh and really affected my ability to to continue do what I do as a lawyer and I hit the rock button and then I started to reflect on on life and my career and what I do alhamdulillah God showed me a whole new different world that I can uh actually be more successful make more money have more freedom without the need of keeping up with this facade when I say facade I mean the corporate facad that we as lawyers have to keep up with right um so this how it started really uh and I start to feel better I start to understand things about myself better I didn't know my myself that that that much to be honest and I could see myself performing better and doing things for the right reasons and I realized that I was running on empty in the last God knows how many years and this is wrong and I see I see this in a lot of workplaces I worked with so many buses and I've seen um I was very hard to manage by the way uh yeah and but the the secured bosses the one that comfortable uh the bigger ones I always managed to work with me very well uh but the ones that were insecure uh we couldn't work together at all and I could see the insecurities that lawyers sometimes deal with and the the conflict they internally deal with on a regular basis um this is not healthy at all and I remember one of the people I used to work with and share an office with um would would say things like uh whatever happens in the day we need to carry on and just water over the duck head and I thought about that I said no I'm not sure I agree no because I get to see then the uh the overwhelming process of it but you always so what's happening here is this you're dealing with a stressful situation in your day but at the same time you're not allowing this to actually come to the surface and you want to keep a certain image to the people you work with than the client you interact with right and this is a very dangerous place to operate from right because what's happening is you are you are expanding the gap between who you really are and how you're currently feeling at the moment and what you're supposed to be doing there's a facade that you need to keep up with how you dress how you look how you talk but this is too far away from how I feel at the moment right and that can break you and I've seen people in their 50s and their 60s and the care big lawyers would would would break after that and I say okay this is not right and I actually wrote an article about it it's called a okay big shot and I I said a little bit cynical sterically I to I deal with lawyers who keep up with this image uh imagine yourself working into the office with a coffee black coffee guy walking into the full suit three pieces Conquering the world you know let's close this deal let's have the submission done okay that's great great but are you okay are you sure you're okay are you okay buddy by the way it's okay not to be okay by the way you know so and this is very important funny enough I I I had Harvey Spectre photo on the I to be more cynical about it right so uh that's how it started really and uh it's interesting topic because um I'm an advocate of it I'm I'm I'm a big believer in it but I'm also realistic uh I I don't believe in life work balance doesn't doesn't make sense I think it's a madeup cliche thing now yeah we deal and work with uh clients who operate in a high Pace very high Pace very stressful businesses and they need the lawyers to be ready and they should because they're paying for that so the expectations is that you should be sharp smart know the answer ready available approachable right and we cannot change that so the idea is how can you actually operate in this High stressful job yet creating a space for you to operate in in a healthy way right imagine like working in the ER and U you see all this blood and death and and sad and cry and say no I can't handle then if you can't handle it's not it's not it's not meant to happen for you but the idea is it's a stressful job how can I manage it right so this is what I'm trying to do it's a big um something very important to me uh and I can give you a simple example have you noticed how do you breathe in you when you draft your emails I've never put any attention to that if you see You' be surprised you don't breathe well at all when you have a tense email to draft you don't read well like I I noticed when I start hearing the clicks t t t t I was like oh my God I'm very angry see yes you see I I met more go that yeah yeah the great guy he was a great guy I invited by du pres Department to one of the Symposium and he came and spoke and we connected and such a lovely guy um and he talks about uh the tiger he talk about anxiety is good when you face a tiger you should be anxious because your body wakes up you need to run breathe sweat you need to survive and the body should give you this booster the anxiety to to make you go from 0 to a th000 or 100 depending on how serious the situation is to survive for a certain amount of time and then your body comes back then we do that every day my friend without a tiger yes right so it's it's it's a scary it's sad it's very sad it's a a very very stressful job and I can understand if yeah if lawyers specifically lawyers are don't have hobbies or they don't do sports or they don't have a very stable family to to go to uh it can be a very tough job and I've seen a lot of my colleagues switching out of this career in general because they can't take it anymore yeah yeah yeah so it's it's true I've seen have you seen the news of this partner from penson Mason who committed suicide oh no I haven't wow last year I mean few months ago yeah um sad you can go and check it out she was working on a big deal and and the talks around it this she was very stressful and she decided to end her life and this is a lawyer who appears from the service to be very successful very presentable looking to notch you know yet there's there's something in the background I'm not showing you and I get that and it's very sad uh to be honest like look at me now I talk about it publicly openly and I love it right yet the first time I talked about it publicly I and again I'm not a therapist I'm not I don't talk about it I moderate sessions and I bring people that who knows the topic to talk about it I just have a vision of how what I want to do what my message is but I also know my boundaries I'm not going to be influencing people what do I know really so I remember the first time I I collaborated with some of my clients signal insurance is one of them uh they do all of the work in mental health Dr s AI who a big name in the ministry of Happiness when we had uh this ministry she's also the founder of Li house Arabia such a public figure in mental health uh we brought Kiran scar such a renowned lawyer uh former GC uh I over type of lawyer like and a personal trainer and we kind of make the discussion flow in a certain way and I bring it together and I had nothing in it I just I just complete passion ding talking to these strangers none of them knew each other convincing them that I want to do this to and bless her I tried to find it she she's a very busy lady she was very kind to come and said yes I'll come and speak and it was non a non-fe gen rating event and I remember we did the brochure it was lovely and IED and then I okay now we're going to market for David right again I'm on the point of the stigma that lawyers have to this poor partner who ended her life because of this stigma she she didn't speak up yet someone like me talks about it and did all this work together all these people now it's time to market for it right I go to my LinkedIn I start type in a decent way satday I'm not moaning and I said hey people who know me I had a family situation that really affected me and I was blessed to have my own practice now and I saw abundance and I could see that all these fake ideas that I had for Success doesn't exist I can suppress how I feel and take care of myself while being this and that here I am I was 35 like 35 years old single father father of three I tell you your mental health matters very nice subtle way of messaging him I couldn't post it the same day I looked at the event I looked at the post I said that's a lot to post no I said this the stigma is real I said I have clients who followed me on Lin and the last and I'm acting on an ongoing cases for them multi-million dollars of disputes complex dispute multi juristic very complex nasty fight yeah the last thing they want to know about is that the main lawyer is talking about mental health ises yes think about it and it's real if you if you if you one of your loved on is doing a surgery and you learned the day before that or the the same day that the surgeon is having a mental how would you feel about what would you do I feel very bad you change it most probably right why cuz I understand that the the mental state and the emotional position where you are affects your performance and everything you see so there's there there's an element to that that scares people and I was a delusion and I said okay I might lose business out of that and I I'm sure that people might come and say hey what are you doing no one has told me that in my face right but I'm sure that I have a lot of peers and friends and clients is this mental health are you crazy something wrong yeah yeah yeah why no we don't we don't say but I said you know what this is such important thing to me because tackled me personally and I felt better out of it I'm going to do it regardless and if I lose business out of that that's fine the beauty of this this client came and thanked me for my post and I didn't know that at all he said I had the same family situation and I couldn't speak up thank you so much I'd love to continue working with you such a great thing to do I didn't know all of that I I I went into it acknowledging that I might lose some of my clients right but and and and and and and and am I still some people might not want to interact because of this element but for me it's such an important thing to to to talk about and to address and the issue is real the stigma is real and how important this is is 100% there it's not a cute thing that you wave studies show you Flor who invest $1 in the emplo mental health get an A return on the investment by $4 yeah the science is there you're going to become more profitable if you take care of your people's mental health if I'm your client and I see that my uh my my legal council is that much in peace with himself and that much aware of where he is that he is posting such uh such a post I'll be even more confident because I have someone who knows very well about his himself he knows a lot about his emotions and he's in peace with himself so much that I feel um I'm I'm in the right hand I'm I'm in a good place so uh that's good to hear this it's good to hear that it's good to hear that uh but again this is one opinion I'm sure there'll be a different opinion and and I'm okay with that yeah I like said I'm very comfortable in my own skin now uh that's it's it's okay and and and you start to realize something else I want to talk about before we move on to the next topic actually mental health and as lawyers I we know this we have a big problem we think too much about ourselves we think too highly of ourselves as we should sometimes because think about what we do people come to us with big money big corporations big problems they come to us and they talk to us and they tell us what should we do and we tell them they listen you do it it works and we get paid for it right other people in the world they they lack the the sense I want I want to feel like I'm I'm getting hurt can someone Fe me can someone listen to me lawyers people come and they wait for to for us to speak to them right so and it works and you have this mind that can analyze things and tell you okay this is the problem this is how we solve it that's what the says this is the practicality of it this is how we going to do it we're going to do this this this and that CEOs CFOs multi-million dollars on the table and you decide and it works and they love you and they come against you and they refer other people to work with you right that's satisfaction yeah it's happiness it is but what also does to you you take this mental home with you and you think ah I'm a big guy yeah yeah AB I'm I'm a big I can I I I can fix everything I can fix everything right uh and alhamdulillah I was very blessed by getting slapped in the face in a decent way and realizing my limitation I really realized the S situation how limited I am I'm not I'm just a lawyer uh what I do is not very complicated yes there a level of complexity but it's not rocket science uh I just help people my role is to do this study know the law the updates give the care attention be due diligent do the work and ends there that's my role so I do that and that's it and I realized how limited I am and how shorten my time here in this world is really no one's going to remember the big case you advis I promise you no one's going to remember the fancy car you drove no one's going to remember the oh I have this like penth house and this place no one's going to remember that but people going to remember other things oh actually this guy helped me how to stand up and talk this guy told me how helped me how to be someone and be confident and someone so you start to shift your attention by realizing your limitation in terms of your ability and your time I say this in in the most productive way I'm not say that where you can do the sky is the limit because what you can aieve in life but you need to do to to function like that knowing that you're really limited you're just a person that has limitation and that things can go wrong beyond your control and need to accept that that's that's amazing advice and I think I'll I'll um I completely agree with you but it fits a lot for senior lawyers the the ones who are already established and uh and successful enough I would like that you give some other advice to the young ones that you started working with uh right now because um everybody who's starting their career they have limitation in their resources or they have uh not not uh not an easy uh way to start their career in the law and what what would you give them as an advice uh I would give myself an advice first it's it's on me to create a place for these guys to be able to to beut to bloom yeah you know the younger Generations like seeds it's my role to collect the good seeds and Nour them and like a farmer you have to become a farmer you can be a hunter when yeah you have to continue to be a hunter but you also got to be a farmer because it requires this care right you can plant a seed and next day it will gr right it needs the right environment the right Sun the right temperature right so you have I'll advise myself you have to be conscious of that um as for the younger generation um yeah you need to have fun in what you do you need to find something that attracts you you need to to go and explore yourself and explore what really keep you gets you out of your bed every day don't do it for the money don't do it for the prestige you have to think and find something that bigger than money and Prestige to continue doing this job it's a very stressful job the spotlight you'll get from this job you get Spotlight you get money it wouldn't matter at certain time uh of your of your C what matters is why you're really doing it right so I would say find something that really excites about this drob this there's many it's also on us you and I as as as older generation is to create this fun and intera the the the the action that these guys can see from the job it can be very boring can be very interesting yeah so it's on us to show them this part um so it's a toway street right so do that um uh be be an explorer I would say um but also be a hard work there's no way around hard working you have to your back and just do the have to put the time you have to put the time and effort there's no way around I promise you if you want to cut short um cut uh Corners in this job go ahead the market will spot you in a heartbeat yeah heartbeat you know find the value that you can provide um and be okay if it doesn't work for you go find something else it's not the most uh great advice I think people have different opinion on it but my this my Hest views honestly I I I totally agree with you this is job that is hard that is stressful that requires a lot of time Dedication that you cannot keep a what what what people call work life balance with it you've got to love it and if you don't love it just something else something Amar thank you so much I enjoyed really talking with you and thank you very much for having the time to come here and to be with us ahed thank you so much for the invite thanks for the crew I I had a great time here it's a bit hot I'm gonna tell you that but I'm not sweating by the way I'm not I'm not I'm not stressed it's just hot summer summer is here summer is here well thank you so much this is y do from M legal see you next week