Meriam Al-Rashid (from left), Will O'Brien and John Lomas. (Courtesy photos)

Eversheds Sutherland has landed a team of international arbitration partners from Dentons as the trans-Atlantic firm builds its U.S.-side arbitration capabilities—a priority for growth.

The partners are Meriam Al-Rashid in New York, who has an investor-state dispute practice and also handles international human rights cases, along with Will O'Brien and John Lomas in Washington, D.C., where they practice international commercial arbitration.

Al-Rashid and O'Brien joined Eversheds Sutherland this week, while Lomas will join in the next few weeks, according to the firm.

Since the 2017 combination of the U.K.'s Eversheds with Atlanta-based Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan, a key goal of the firm has been to build up the U.S. side of its international arbitration practice, which is already well-established in London, said U.S. co-chair Mark Wasserman.

"We can help existing clients in a much bigger way with Meriam, John and Will being with us," he said.

"We have not had this practice in the United States and we've been looking for the right people for the better part of two years," Wasserman explained. "In today's global economy, international arbitrations are increasingly complex and strategically important for our clients—be they companies, investors or financial institutions."

The U.S. side of the firm does have practitioners handling international construction arbitration, including Jenny Fletcher and John Fleming in Atlanta—but it has not had anyone focused on investor-state disputes, like Al-Rashid, Wasserman said, or the broader commercial arbitration presence that O'Brien and Lomas bring in Washington.

Eversheds has about 80 lawyers worldwide who practice international arbitration, and in the past year it has added seven partners to the practice in Hong Kong, Singapore, the Middle East, London and Paris, said Ron Zdrojeski, the U.S. co-chair of the firm's global litigation practice.

"We're quite excited about having people of their caliber join us," Zdrojeski said. "The depth and diversity of their experience—which spans numerous regions, arbitral rules, deal types and industries—will greatly benefit our clients in need of sophisticated international dispute resolution."

The firm intends to add more U.S. practitioners to the international arbitration practice, Zdrojeski added.

Breaking Into the Club

Al-Rashid, 41, who is leading the U.S. investor-state arbitration practice for Eversheds Sutherland, said she joined the firm for the chance to build a practice. "Eversheds had that gap in its U.S. international arbitration practice and presented me the opportunity," she said, adding that part of the draw was Eversheds Sutherland's commitment to developing a broad team of practitioners.

The firm also has clients across industries that engage in international dispute resolution and a strong litigation practice to support the arbitration team, Al-Rashid said, and she liked the people and the culture.

"The energy has been incredibly positive," she said, adding that some of the firm's London arbitrators have already been scheduling meetings for her to meet clients.

As a woman and minority, Al-Rashid said, she struggled hard to break into international arbitration. "It is a club and it is very hard to get into."

Al-Rashid, who is of Iraqi and Egyptian descent, holds citizenship in those two countries as well as the U.S. and the U.K., which she said is one reason she became interested in international dispute resolution.

After earning an LL.M. in international law from George Washington University she joined Crowell & Moring, where she started handling commercial arbitrations from its London office for clients in the Middle East and Central Asia.

Over time, Al-Rashid said, she started handling more arbitrations for investors against states. She left to become a partner at U.K. firm Pinsent Masons and then in 2016 joined Dentons to build that firm's international arbitration practice in the US, particularly for investor-state disputes.

Those disputes, often over ownership of oil, mining or other concessions, can be worth millions or even billions of dollars. For these cases, she said, "The stakes are high—and there will be a lot more disputes to come as we watch the geopolitics of the world change."

Among a long roster of cases, Al-Rashid has recently represented U.S. investors against Egypt over the country's expropriation of their cotton assets and a U.K. investor against Poland over the expropriation of a potash-mining project.

While Al-Rashid generally represents investors, often in disputes about oil, gas and mining assets or infrastructure projects like pipelines in developing countries, she has also represented states, such as Papua New Guinea, which was the defendant in a dispute over taxes on crude oil production. (The claimant paid the taxes, she said.)

Al-Rashid said her international human rights cases, many pro bono, are as important as her cases for commercial clients, adding that Eversheds Sutherland's support of pro bono was a draw.

In one recent case Al-Rashid analyzed and documented war crimes by Myanmar against the Rohingya people and then briefed why the killings should be classified as a genocide for the U.N. Human Rights Council, with the aim of starting an independent international investigation.

More than 730,000 Rohingya fled Myanmar in 2017 after a military-led crackdown that included mass killings and rape, but the country denies allegations of genocide.

Al-Rashid is working with the Vance Center for International Justice to advance the rights of children in Cite Soleil, one of the poorest districts in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. She is providing legal assistance to make a case that the conditions there are violations of the children's rights to a healthy environment, life and dignity.