“Highly Commended as Senior Corporate Counsel of the Year 2017- Middle East” by the Association of Corporate Counsels.

Acting as Senior Legal Counsel for “AWR Properties” and Al Rostamani Family Office. Served previously as In-House Counsel for “Majid Al Futtaim Properties” and as Legal Manager for the public listed developer “Deyaar Development”.

Advised and worked as lead counsel during the past years on a variety of complex commercial transactions and mixed-use projects in UAE, UK, US, Oman, Turkey, Tunisia and Lebanon, as well as some of the largest real estate, construction and commercial disputes in arbitration and before Dubai and DIFC Courts. He further advised on the drafting of the real estate chapter of a new UAE federal law and other Dubai-real estate laws.

Prior to moving to Dubai in 2012, he worked as a private practitioner and professor of international and commercial law at An Najah National University in his hometown, Nablus- Palestine. He was also a member of the first Arbitration Committee of ICC Palestine in 2012.

Shafiq received his Master of Laws from the University of Pittsburgh- the US, trained at a prominent Pittsburgh law firm and he is Alumnus and Ambassador of the Arbitration Academy in Paris. Shafiq is also a Member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators in London and the Arab and International Arbitrators group in Dubai and is a frequent speaker on in-house practice, real estate, and arbitration law.