| Pakistan
Dr Nudrat Piracha is a partner at Samdani Qureshi Aqlaal (SQA), a niche entity providing legal, tax, corporate advisory and Appropriate Dispute Resolution (ADR) solutions from under one roof. SQA is a collaborating firm of Andersen Global, which has become the third largest legal presence.
All work relating to Pakistan is sent to SQA as Andersen’s collaborating firm.
She is also the Chief Executive officer of the International Centre for Appropriate Dispute Resolution and Prevention (Pvt.) Ltd (an access to justice project) in Pakistan.
Dr Piracha was awarded the Best ADR Lawyer Award in 2021 by the Ministry of Law and Justice Pakistan, Group Development, Pakistan Women in Law Initiative, supported by Australian High Commission and the British High Commission.
She is a Fulbright scholar, a Weinstein JAMS International Fellow for 2018, and the first lawyer from Pakistan to become a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, UK (FCIArb). Dr Piracha was the first woman in Pakistan to have qualified as an S.J.D. She is an alumna of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
In a career stretching over 20 years, she has worked as counsel in the field of ADR in arbitrations before ICSID, ICC, SCC, DFIC-LCIA, Ad Hoc tribunals, and rose to partnership at the leading Pakistani firm, Samdani Qureshi Aqlaal. Dr Piracha is a Solicitor Advocate of England and Wales, with rights of audience up to the Supreme Court of England & Wales, besides being a Member of the High Court Bar of Pakistan.
Dr Piracha was nominated to the panel of arbitrators of ICSID by Pakistan in 2018 and served as a member of an Ad Hoc Committee of ICSID in relation to annulment proceedings in a dispute between a British national and State of Sri Lanka. With this appointment she became the first woman in Pakistan to have been appointed by an International arbitral center in 75 years of Pakistan’s history.
Dr Piracha has extensive experience and training in ADR, mediation, negotiation, and arbitrations from most prestigious universities and organisations.
As a senior fellow of JAMs, she has been trained by them and have attended mediations at JAMS with their panelists concerning commercial and employment disputes.
Samdani Qureshi Aqlaal
Samdani Qureshi Aqlaal (SQA) is an amalgam of two boutique law firms named “Samdani and Qureshi” and “AQLAAL Advocates”.
With a combined experience of more than 50 years in niche areas of law, both firms joined hands in January 2023 to serve the clients with a diversified experience that the team brings under the firm’s name.
The firm is also an exclusive collaborating firm in Pakistan of Andersen Global, enabling us to serve our clients even better with the firm’s immediate global outreach through Andersen Global.
Samdani and Qureshi (formerly Walker Matrineu Saleem) was founded in 1989 by the late Justice K.M.A Samdani and Barrister Farrukh Qureshi.
AQLAAL Advocates was formed in 2001 by Barrister Sardar Ejaz Ishaq Khan (now serving as an Hon’ble Judge of the Islamabad High Court, Islamabad).
