SCHOOL OF COMPUTING & ENGINEERING

MODULE BUS346

LAW FIRMS IN USA & KSA

2010 / 2011

By
ALI AYOUB
No. :

Module Lecturer:

Date: 14th February 2011

Table of Contents

I. Law Firms

a. Saudi Arabia

b. United States of America

II. Human Resources

a. Saudi Arabia

b. United States of America

III. Practices

a. Saudi Arabia

b. United States of America

IV. References

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I. Law Firms

a. Saudi Arabia

Saudi law firms primarily exist in the four main cities of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and are:

Jeddah, Riyadh, Dammam and Al Khobar. Many of the law firms in Al Khobar and Dammam

have associate offices in the United States due to the business nature and industrial structure of

that area. According to an online information portal there are almost sixty Saudi legal firms listed

in the Kindgom some of which have provided vast information about practices and specialties

while others are simply listed with phone contacts (The Saudi Network 2010). The top two firms

that are fully domestic are Al Soaib Firm that has been established since 1995 in Riyadh and Al

Suwaiket & Al Busaies Attorneys at Law.

The online portal Legal 500 has been publishing for twenty years and has the largest coverage

and most sophisticated ranking system according to sectors of legal firms in over a hundred

countries around the world. Accordingly the most top ranked banking and finance legal advisors

that have associates abroad and are part of an multinational legal advisory company in the

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are Abdulaziz Al Gasim Law Firm in association with Allen & Overy

LLP, Legal Advisors in association with Baker & McKenzie and the Law Office of Dr. Waleed

N. Al-Nuwaiser in association with White & Case LLP (Legal500 2011). Not to mention there

are several other firms that has proved to have a strong track record in the market which are also

associated to international companies through mergers and synergies but have domestically

started up such as Al-Jadaan & Partners Law Firm in co-operation with Clifford Chance LLP,

Hatem Abbas Ghazzawi & Co., Law Office of Dr. Mujahid M. Al-Sawwaf, Law Office of

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Hassan Mahassni, and the Law Office of Mohanned bin Saud Al-Rasheed in association with

Baker Botts L.L.P. (Legal500 2011).

Many of the legal advisory firms have lead in the business environment such as banking and

finance such as Al Jadaan & Partners Law Firm that is made up of six associates with trainees

which were able to provide legal consultations to Zain telecommunications in a $2.5 billion deal;

keeping in mind other clients such as HSBC and Jabal Omar Development one of the biggest

construction contractors in the Kingdom (Legal500 2011). Moreover, firms such as Al Suwaiket

& Al Busaies Attorneys at Law in Al Khobar manage large business accounts such as Procter &

Gamble, the Carlyle Group, Mihuzo Corporate Bank, Deutsche Bank and Standard Chartered

Bank (Sb-LawyersWeb 2010). Even though the portfolio of the company is large it is composed

of two main partners and more than 28 attorneys.

b. United States of America:

Law in the United States of America is much more complex because unlike the uniform standard

set of laws placed by the Ministry of Justice of Saudi Arabia, it has been divided into many

levels such as the federal law and the state law. Unlike Saudi Arabia the number of firms in the

United States is much vaster and more specialized. Major Law firms in the United States have

gone global and have learned to adapt to a fast changing legal environment. In the United States,

legislation is a continuous change due to lobbyists and congressional acts as well as pending and

passed bills making legal advisory firms in a constant need for anticipation and quick

information sharing with their clients.

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According to the Internet Legal Research Group there are over twenty one law firms in the

United States that contain more than a thousand associates in each (ILRG 2011). Furthermore the

largest law firm in the United States is Baker & McKenzie, DLA Piper, Jones Day, Hogan

Lovells, Latham & Watkins, and White & Chase.

Taking the largest firm as an example of legal firms in the United States, Chicago-based Baker &

McKenzie established in 1949 that is composed of 3774 attorneys of 1349 are partners and 2425

are associates (ILRG 2011). The company’s first client was Abbott Laboratories in 1933, which

produces pharmaceutical drugs, and later on expanded to have more than ten thousand clients of

both private and public equity generating a global revenue from their forty worldwide office of

$2 billion per year from 2008 (Backer & McKenzie 2010).

DLA Piper is another Chicago based law firm that is ranked second in the United States with

3448 attorneys of which 1207 are partners and 2077 are associates. DLA Piper specializes in

many areas such as technology, transportation, life sciences, healthcare and more (DLA Piper

2010). DLA Piper was officially established in 2005 after a series of mergers with other large

law firms and acquisitions in abroad markets outside the United States to grow into more than 30

countries worldwide (DLA Piper 2010).

II. Human Resources

a. Saudi Arabia

In Saudi Arabia most of the lawyers graduate from law colleges in the universities found within

the Kingdom and at a later stage some of the lawyers, especially partnering with foreign firms,

continue their education through programs, workshops and official educational degrees abroad in

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countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom. Also Saudi law firms are divided

into many teams that are multicultural and diverse in educational backgrounds and practices. For

instance at Al Soaib Law Firm the team of attorneys are made up of the Saudi head, European

and Westerner international law attorneys and Arabs with Western educations that concentrate

on Islamic Sharia laws in modern times (Soaib Law Firm 2010).

It is quite significant to point out that most associates and lawyers have obtained recognition

from governmental entities in the Kingdom that not only cover the field of law but also stress on

business and world trade. For example, Mr. AbdulAziz Al-Abduljabbar has had a strong

background in economics where he was leading departments at Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency

then became a member in the Committee for the Settlement of Banking Disputes in Riyadh to

finally settle in with Al Jadaan & Partners Law Firm in 2002 eventually becoming a partner by

2007 (Al Jadaan & Partners 2010). Another good example would be Abdulaziz AlGasim who is

a partner at Abdulaziz AlGasim Law Firm in association with Allen & Overy where he enjoys

membership of Sharia boards in many financial institutions including: the Sharia board of the

Saudi Investment Bank, and the Sharia board of Unicorn Bank (Allen & Overy 2010).

The law firms in the Kingdom have an equal amount of attorneys that are foreign and are citizens

of the Kingdom depending on the nature of legal advisory that is provided by the firm. For

instance, at Al Soaib Law Firm in Riyadh, Jochen Hundt, the head of international affairs has

studied abroad in Germany where he was born and then moved to Dubai where he finally settled

in the Kingdom by 1998 through his embassy to finally join the firm in 1999 where he has

become very active in European legal affairs and has joined many boards and legal research

groups (Soaib Law Firm 2010).

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Most of the lawyers in these firms have attended workshops, symposiums and educational

programs abroad. For instance, Karim B. Nasser is a partner at Legal Advisors in Association

with Baker & McKenzie in Riyadh and has had training and education at the University of Paris

where he learned about finance and due to such experience has been able to create the regulatory

framework of the Capital Market Authority of Saudi Arabia and was able to conclude many

initial public offerings (IPO) of multibillion dollar corporations (Baker McKenzie 2011).

b. United States of America

In the United States of America lawyers tend to join their domestic state offices as attorneys and

gradually climb up the corporate ladders to become partners. They obtain their education from

their own country of citizenship that has to be recognized by state entities. Also, recognition and

awards are important for lawyer careers and development in the United States which provide

them with further credibility, higher advisory fees and court power. Law firms in the United

States also have Alumni programs where former lawyers joined in an organization are still

invited to events and meetings to reconnect in attorney associations and networks.

At Baker & McKenzie, Michael L. Morkin is a partner in the Chicago office where the law firm

was first established. Morkin has obtained his education from the University of Illinois and has

been admitted to several courts as a member of trustees such as the US Tax Court and US Court

of Appeals. Moreover, Morkin has professional admissions and memberships in American,

Illinois and Chicago Bar Associations along with the American Foreign Law Association and the

Chicago Council on Foreign Relations (Baker & McKenzie).

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III. Practices

a. Saudi Arabia

Law firms in Saudi Arabia that have partnered with international firms provide advisory and

legal consultation for their foreign clients on the domestic legal and regulatory environment.

Most of the firms such as Baker Botts and White & Case have operations in Saudi Arabia and

have partnered with domestic law firms to provide legal advisory for foreign firms throughout

the Kingdom while focusing on the energy industry as well as the international financial

integration of Saudi firms investing abroad.

In Saudi Arabia most of the practices of domestically-based law firms are business based. For

instance Al Jadaan & Partners Law Firm specialize in areas of practice such as mergers &

acquisitions, equity capital markets, investment funds, financial regulatory, privatizations,

corporate & commercial, real estate, Islamic finance, projects, energy & infrastructure and debt

capital markets. This has become a trend due to the highly demanding in business nature of the

country where foreign direct investment has become a quite common and multinational

organizations require legal consultation in order to set up operations and maintain legal safety in

the Kingdom.

b. United States of America

In the United States there is a strong relationship between the size of the firms and the broadness

of the sectors where legal expertise is practices and the breadth of specialization in areas of e.

Most of the companies that are well known have listed antitrust and EU competition as one of

their main services, which includes merger and joint venture control, anti-competitive behavior,

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antitrust litigation and regulatory matters. This is followed by intellectual property and finance

services that have been on a rise due to international trade.

The sectors that law firms in the United States provide legal advisory and consultations can be

quite broad but not necessarily cover all sectors in the American market. For instance DLA Piper

provide services in the following sector: aerospace & defense, banking, energy & water,

healthcare, hospitality & leisure, life sciences, sports, media, entertainment, technology,

transportation (DLA Piper 2011). On the other hand White & Case provide services in:

communications & media, construction, funds, mining & metals, oil & gas, pharmaceuticals &

healthcare, power, sourcing transactions and technology transactions (White & Case 2011).

Finally, it is important to state here that American firms not only provide clientele services in

their areas of expertise of broad and specific sectors they have also exceled in creating laws and

placing regulatory frameworks that pass through bills as these provide more efficient stances for

their clients. In addition, they also publish bulletins for all their international offices for specific

countries in order to keep the whole organization updated to latest trends and changes in the legal

environment. Moreover, unlike Saudi Arabia, they also publish articles, books and journals in

collaboration with universities and law colleges throughout the country.

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IV. References

1. http://www.the-saudi.net/directory/law.htm

2. http://www.legal500.com/firms/15553/offices/15259

3. http://www.legal500.com/c/saudi-arabia/banking-and-finance

4. http://www.sb-lawyersweb.com/ourclients_en.html

5. http://www.ilrg.com/nlj250

6. http://www.ilrg.com/nlj250/firmDetail/1

7. http://www.ilrg.com/nlj250/firmDetail/2

8. http://www.bakermckenzie.com/firmfacts/

9. http://www.bakermckenzie.com/firmfacts/firmhistory/

10. http://www.dlapiper.com/global/services/

11. http://www.aljadaan.com/index.php?page_id=70

12. http://www.allenovery.com/AOWeb/binaries/46737.pdf

13. http://www.bakermckenzie.com/KarimNassar/

14. http://www.soaiblaw.com/pages/ourteam.htm

15. http://www.bakermckenzie.com/MichaelMorkin/

16. http://www.dlapiper.com/global/services/

17. http://www.whitecase.com/practices/