Weinstein International Foundation Senior Fellow Nudrat Piracha Awarded “Best ADR Lawyer” at “Women in Law Awards”

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 22, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Weinstein International Foundation Senior Fellow Nudrat E. Piracha has been awarded “Best ADR Lawyer” by the Women in Law Initiative Pakistan – an organization designed to bring together the female lawyers of Pakistan and promote equal opportunities in the legal profession – as part of its first-ever “Women in Law Awards.” Piracha was honored at a late November symposium on diversity and inclusion in Islamabad, Pakistan.

"To see female lawyers being given their due recognition and visibility at the national level has truly been a dream for which we at Women in Law have worked for all these years,” said Nida Usman Chaudhary, founder of Women in Law Initiative Pakistan.

The Weinstein International Foundation (“Foundation”) is a non-profit organization dedicated to making mediation available and accessible worldwide in the face of increasing global challenges and conflicts. Piracha is a Senior Fellow of the Foundation’s global network since 2018, building on her career-long dedication to alternative dispute resolution (ADR).

Having grown up dreaming of being a pilot, Piracha was steered into law and found a passion for arbitration – focusing on commercial arbitration, including corporate construction and investment disputes. Today she is a: Solicitor-Advocate, England and Wales; a Member of the High Court of Pakistan Bar; a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators UK (FCIArb); and the Country Reporter for Pakistan for the Kluwer Arbitration International/ International Transnational Arbitration. In 2016, Piracha served as a scholar in residence for six months at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). In addition, she has been designated by the government of Pakistan to the panel of arbitrators of ICSID for a term of eight years.

In 2020, as a Fulbright Scholar, Piracha became the first woman lawyer from Pakistan to earn a Doctorate in Judicial Science (SJD), graduating from George Washington University. She is the first lawyer from Pakistan to be appointed as a Fellow to the FCArb, and in 2018, she was nominated to the panel of arbitrators at the ICSID by Pakistan. Piracha was subsequently appointed as a Member on the Annulment Committee in a case between a U.K. national and State of Sri Lanka, becoming the second person ever from the country to be appointed on the Annulment Committee. She is currently an Equity Partner in the firm, Samdani & Qureshi, a collaboration with Anderson Global, where she continues her work in international arbitration. She also advises the government of Pakistan on improving the existing investment regime.

Building off her experience as a 2018 Weinstein JAMS Fellow, Piracha recently launched “The International Centre for Appropriate Dispute Resolution and Prevention.” The Centre seeks to institutionalize ADR in Pakistan to ease the estimated two million cases currently pending in the country’s court system.

Piracha’s dedication to ADR and advancing women in the legal profession in Pakistan and beyond remains unflinching, “I want to serve as a mentor and inspiration for other women wanting to enter the field of ADR. It is an area of the law particularly apt for women, given the issues with their appearances in the courts. I would like to establish training and mentorship programs for Pakistani women in collaboration with international organizations and affiliations.”

“Nudrat Piracha is an incredible individual and role model – in her home country of Pakistan and beyond, particularly to every little girl whose dreams have been limited or whose path has been made unnecessarily challenging by outdated ways of thinking,” said Judge Danny Weinstein, Founder, Weinstein International Foundation. “This award is further credentialing of a career whose accomplishments only continue to grow. We couldn’t be prouder of Nudrat and are honored to call her a colleague.”

To read a roundup of the “Women in Law Awards,” please click here.

About the Weinstein International Foundation

The Weinstein International Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to making mediation available and accessible worldwide in the face of increasing global challenges and conflict. Founded by deeply experienced dispute resolution pioneers in the U.S. and abroad, we leverage the growing network of ADR-trained Weinstein JAMS International Fellows to further promote mediation education and training while helping our communities manage local, regional and cross-border non-commercial disputes in the public interest.

Headquartered in San Francisco, the Weinstein International Foundation works through a global network of ADR-trained dispute resolution professionals from around the world with the cultural understanding and local knowledge necessary to promote the resolution of conflict through mediation and other dispute resolution practices in their own countries and beyond.