First Question: How Can Women Succeed in Managing a Law Office?
First, I have been a member at the Kuwaiti Bar Association since 26/2/1990, membership no. (334); this number reflects the total number of male and female attorneys at that time, as number of female attorneys working at the private sector was less than six.
However, I aptly managed to join such field, and I got trained at one of the most prominent law firms at that time; i.e., Prof. Badr Dahi Al Ogail’s office, former member of the National Assembly and first Kuwaiti General Prosecutor.
Then I had the experience of participating with Kuwaiti lawyers in an office in 1997.
Later, I opened my private office under the name of “Nedhal Al Humaidan Advocates and Legal Consultants.
Second Question: How to Overcome Challenges?
Women are as capable as men of giving and contributing to economic development. Actually, they are half of the human capital which is considered a basic factor for development. The experiences of developed countries, especially, have shown that women are able to assume responsibilities of work and be the actor of production process at all levels including leadership.
In spite of the great progress, achieved by women in labor market within the last few years, women still confront various obstacles and challenges that limit their active role in development contribution, just for being women.
Challenges are numerous and diverse, among of which are social, psychological and legal challenges. I’ll begin first with social challenges, as the society needed to be prepared for accepting female lawyers as employers not just employees, especially, at all law branches. For me, it has been a serious challenge to be a lawyer at commercial, civil, administrative and criminal cases, not just personal status cases as customary. I also had to prove that a female lawyer can have a normal social life and have a family and children like anyone else.
Another challenge that cannot be denied is the possibility of working at the private sector consistently, though no support was offered to the private sector or to its personnel as now. Furthermore, there were no leaves for maternity, accompanying spouse or even widow’s waiting period.
I confronted all those challenges in the absence of legislation at that time.
I managed to overcome all of this through being organized, highly reliable, earnest and committed, by which I surpassed my fellow male lawyers and gained trust of each of the judicial authority, coworkers and clients.
A successful lawyer gets his client the best possible gains and shuns the loss. He does not work on successful cases only, as the real challenge here is to accept cases with potential loss and make the best of them.
Third Question: How to Manage Lawyers? Is There a Gender Difference at Work?
Regarding lawyers’ office management, there is no difference between male and female lawyers. It depends only on the person himself, his good management, skills and capabilities of dealing with his employees and clients; this is how he becomes reliable.
When a person is organized, committed, earnest, cultured and striving for sustainable development, he becomes a successful manager - whether male or female.
Fourth Question: How to Deal with Clients?
A client resorts to lawyers with good reputation, plentiful knowledge and distinguished performance. The lawyer is to befriend his client, incur his concerns and pains, transparently and sincerely convey them to the judge and be strong in responding to injustice and aggression caused to him by his opponent. Most importantly, the relation between a lawyer and his client must be clear, frank and based on mutual confidence.
Fifth Question: How to Do Marketing for the Office?
Frankly, I don’t know the art of marketing for the office, but I am very good at my work. The outcomes of my cases, my commitment, my presence and my full awareness of the office cases are really marketing for my office.
However, I apply means of social media to achieve development and be consistently updated, with the aim of offering the best legal, administrative and accounting services for our clients.
Lawyer/Nedhal Al Humaidan
Before Court of Cassation and Constitutional Court