My mum is Syrian and my father’s Iraqi. I was raised in Saudi Arabia and Lebanon. I was influenced by the war in Lebanon and then the war in Iraq. Constantly moving and never having a place that you can call your own, but also fighting to be educated.
As a girl in Saudi Arabia, I had to dress up as a boy to go swimming and horse riding. All the things women weren’t allowed to do. When I became a teenager, I wasn’t allowed to any more. It was very obvious that I was not a boy and I found my world cut in half.
As a woman I was told you can’t be educated – you’ll get married off. That’s when I decided I wanted to be a lawyer. I wanted to be able to make a difference and be independent. I felt that the law was the biggest way to make a change.
I wanted to be a human rights lawyer. Then I got swayed by the big city.
My mum brought me here as a single parent. My parents got divorced during the Gulf War and she essentially lost everything. She came here with nothing and was trying to educate and raise my brother and me.
I was very surprised to see that somebody will pay you to study in the UK. I was working two jobs, trying to make ends meet, studying at university at the same time. I applied for the hardship fund because we had no money. When all these big law firms were saying they’d sponsor me to do my LPC, it was unique and a blessing, but it was only to do a specific type of work – in the City.
I chose to train at Clifford Chance because, in one of those career development meetings at university, someone said that only the top 1% of students ended up there. I thought: ‘I’ve come from Saudi Arabia where I had to dress up as a boy to swim in the pool. Then I was told I can’t swim, I can’t horse ride and I have to get married. I want to be the top 1%.’
After I helped my mum pay off her debts and put my brother through university, I found I was actually really enjoying what I was doing.
I enjoy creating new business lines. I love the idea of trying to solve a problem for a client, but at the end of it, you create a business that can outlive you and be there as a new development. After I’m gone, the legacy of the funds goes on.
Everything I do is different. It’s not cookie cutter. Every business I help launch for my clients has its own unique issues and problems.
As a woman I was told you canʼt be educated – you’ll get married off. Thatʼs when I decided I wanted to be a lawyer.
On my first Middle Eastern deal, I was listening to the minister of finance talking about the documents, not realising I had drafted them. Then he asked me to make him a cup of coffee. He was talking in Arabic, basically saying: ʻShe’s a pretty girl.’ I said: ‘I’m the pretty girl that wrote your work.’ He was insulted and I didn’t get to go to the closing dinner as punishment. It was nice and powerful to be able to say: ‘Yes, I have a pretty face, I can make your coffee, but actually I drafted your documents as well.’
I found it a hard slog to be taken seriously. I was scared of partners. I was always thinking others thought I was stupid. I didn’t ask questions. Only now I’m beginning to enjoy it because I don’t worry about what people think of me.
In Saudi Arabia it was culturally unacceptable to look a man in the eye. They think you’re flirting and you get into trouble. As a trainee, one of the partners said: ‘Can you look up please?’ I was making no eye contact. Years later he said: ‘When you first joined, you were like a deer caught in the headlights, you were so scared.’ I found that funny because he was completely puzzled by me.
I used to go into meeting rooms and not turn on the lights. One of the partners said: ‘It’s not very hard, you just do this,’ demonstrating how to switch them on. In Saudi Arabia I was not supposed to touch anything. The gentleman would turn on the lights or open the door. I don’t think people really understood culturally where I was coming from.
I put a lot of emotional effort into mentoring the team. I’ve been told I’m overdoing it, but I like to invest in the person I’m mentoring. I find it really rewarding to be able to see someone you’ve trained flourish, grow and succeed.
I would say to the younger generation: ‘Don’t worry about what anyone thinks about you.’ Don’t worry about how you’re perceived, or if your questions are going to be stupid, or that people will make fun of you. I say this to my children as well, especially my daughter.
As women, we tend not to do anything unless we can do it to perfection. I realise now that you don’t need to be perfect, you just need to do it. When you do, all of these doors will open.
I had good role models for how to run a business, including Michael Smith and Erica Handling from Ashurst. They built an atmosphere where you felt you were being moulded into a truly exciting team. I really, really enjoyed that feeling and culture.
My mother is absolutely inspiring. I don’t think I could have had her courage to leave everything behind to get us an education. She had an asylum passport and got deported, left me in boarding school and had to try to come back to get me. It was such a massive struggle. I don’t think many people would be that strong and resilient.
I used to go into meeting rooms and not turn on the lights. In Saudi Arabia I was not supposed to touch anything. I don’t think people understood culturally where I was coming from.
I haven’t achieved what I want to achieve yet. There’s still so much more to do. I would like to make a difference in allowing a forum for women from ethnic minorities and difficult backgrounds to feel comfortable enough to be educated. To see that they can work in any industry, even if it’s an industry that’s very male dominated.
I see a huge change in innovation. I’m seeing a lot of digitalisation of processes that were manually run by associates.
You have to really be at the cutting edge of AI so that you don’t get left behind. When my daughter goes to university, a lot of career opportunities she would have had won’t be there because it’s going to be done by AI. I’m already seeing the very traditional asset class of funds, classically a bit slow to catch up with everything else, suddenly surging forwards. We’re digitising a lot of the processes using artificial intelligence.
The impact of Covid has been dramatic in highlighting what’s weak in a business. Suddenly within two years, everyone has had to improve their processes, how they treat staff and develop their AI so that they can work from home. That’s nothing but good.
A great lawyer isn’t constrained by ʻwell, it says this in this book’ or ʻmarket practice is this’ or ʻso-and-so told me that for the last 20 years it has been done this way’. Thinking outside the box and daring to be different, daring to be brave enough to make a change.
Outside of work my life mostly revolves around my kids. I love spending time with them and I never seem to have enough time to do all things I want to do with them. They are such inspiring kids, each one truly unique. My daughter is a young novelist. She’s going to get her first book published – she’s only 12. That was what she was doing during the pandemic. She decided she wanted to write something and then we sent it off and she got several offers. She has inspired me as well to finish my book.
My favourite thing is Star Trek. My husband and I are absolutely Star Trek mad and we have been for over 20 years now. Picard or Janeway? We have all these debates at home. I’ve just started to get the kids involved too because they are the right age now. It’s so much fun.
Be brave. I wish I was braver earlier in my career. I didn’t really speak my mind at all. I was so eager to please and be accepted I didn’t think anyone would really value my opinion. Even when I saw things that weren’t right, I didn’t speak up. Now everybody’s speaking out but I didn’t have the guts to do it. That’s really what my mantra is now. Speak your mind and be heard and valued.
Diala Minott is a partner in the credit funds practice of Paul Hastings’ London office. She was awarded ‘Lawyer of the Year’ at Legal Business’ 2021 Awards.
Photographer: Brendan Lea