Baker & McKenzie Habib Al Mulla boosts key practice areas

Charlotte Bijlani

Joanna Matthews Taylor

Baker & McKenzie Habib Al Mulla has enhanced its capabilities in the region with the appointments of Charlotte Bijlani as a partner in its Arbitration practice and Joanna Matthews-Taylor as a senior associate for the Employment practice this month. Both are based in the Dubai office.

Bijlani is a dispute resolution lawyer who specialises in international arbitration, commercial litigation and ADR with specific expertise in construction and engineering, real estate, corporate, shareholder and contractual disputes. She also has experience in corporate insolvency and regulatory matters. She is a longstanding solicitor advocate in the Higher Courts, Civil Proceedings of England and Wales and has full rights of audience before the DIFC Courts. She joins from another international law firm where she was a partner in London and then Dubai.

In addition, the firm has boosted its Employment practice with the hire of Joanna Matthews-Taylor, who joins from DLA Piper’s Dubai office. Admitted as a solicitor in Scotland, she has been practicing law in the UAE since 2008, advising human resources personnel and in-house counsel on a full spectrum of employment and immigration matters in the UAE and wider Middle East region. Her areas of expertise include employment contracts, benefits and termination, as well as the employment aspects of corporate transactions, cross-border secondments and mobility of employees in the Middle East, advising on both contentious and non-contentious issues.