Middle East

We spoke with a number of GCs operating in the Middle East. Unsurprisingly, given the diverse socio-political climate throughout the region, their opinions differed significantly regarding local politics, the social environment they were operating in, and how advanced the laws they operated under. Nevertheless, what stands out after speaking with GCs in the Middle East is how similar their experiences have been with GCs around the globe. Under our modern-day neoliberal economic system and in response to the pressures imposed on legal teams by the corporate side in response to covid, in-house counsel have seen a significant increase in both volume and complexity of work, as well as breadth of matters.

Their experiences bear strong resemblances to the experiences shared with us by GCs and in-house counsel around the globe, and when read in parallel with our article covering advances in legal tech in Africa, it’s clear that while different countries within the Middle East may differ considerably from one another in their priorities, as well as from African countries, in-house counsel globally face the same problems – and are currently trying to solve them both by shifting the internal structure of in-house legal teams to become Jacks-of-all-trades (and masters of everything), but, more importantly, alleviating many of the difficulties they face by adopting the most current advancements in legal tech. That’s why we have emphasised how GCs and in-house counsel are united in experiencing the same increased pressures from corporate, no matter where they are working and under different legal regimes.