Diana Hamade

Spear’s Review

Diana Hamade of Diana Hamade Attorneys at Law is recognised by her peers as being one of the leading practitioners of family law in the Middle East, receiving three times as many recommendations as her nearest competitor in a survey carried out by Spear’s.

It is recommendations that bring her most of her business, too. She told Spear’s: ‘Most of the private client, high-net-worth people, their first and most important contact in any country is their wealth managers, their bankers. People are referred through them.’

Working across the UAE for a domestic and international clientele Hamade and her staff are very experienced and adept at negotiating the different systems in place in different jurisdictions. ‘It’s a melange,’ she says. ‘It’s like a number of legal systems in one.’

Adviser Profile

Diana Hamade is the founder of boutique law firm Diana Hamade Attorneys at Law in Dubai and is a UAE-licensed lawyer with right of audience before all UAE courts. She is licensed by the Ministry of Justice, the Dubai Legal Affairs Department and the Abu Dhabi Judicial Department, and is a DIFC registered practitioner and licensed wills draftsman. 

Diana authors articles on family law in the UAE and the Middle East for publications including the National, the ICLG series, Lexis Nexis, Thomson Reuters, Spears, and Chambers. Diana was recognized by Thomson Reuters as the Most Influential Female Lawyer in the UAE and as the Best Legal Writer by The National. She was presented the Arab Woman Legal Award 2018, the Author Excellence Award 2019, and the Woman Law Firm Leader in 2021 by Lexis Nexis. 

Diana is known as a specialist on Sharia law, family law, and private client practice for high-net-worth individuals. She is often referred to as the expert on such matters and has written countless expert opinions on UAE and Sharia law for judges worldwide including countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Australia. She is ranked as Band 1 by Chambers & Partners for Private Client Practice in the UAE for High-Net-Worth Individuals. She is the first female lawyer in the International Academy of Family Lawyers (IAFL) and STEP Arabia. She is also a founding member of the International Bar Association’s Arab Regional Forum and is a guest lecturer and professor of family law at the Sorbonne University in Abu Dhabi. 

Diana is fluent in English, Arabic, and French and has an LL.M. in Commercial Law from the University of Aberdeen in Scotland and an LL.B. from the United Arab Emirates University Faculty of Sharia & Law.