Omar is a Counsel in the Regulatory & Government Advisory Group. He is a US- and UK-qualified lawyer with extensive experience in public international law, international administrative law, employment law, litigation and arbitration, and data protection.
Before joining Hadef & Partners, Omar was a law professor at New York University School of Law and McGeorge School of Law, University of the Pacific, teaching public international law, law of international organisations, international labour law, administrative law, legislation and regulation, and legal ethics. He served with the United Nations in the Middle East, where his work concentrated in public international law, and at the United Nations Secretariat in New York, where he represented staff members before its Dispute Tribunal and Appeals Tribunal. He was also a legal adviser to the Palestinian negotiations team in permanent-status negotiations. He began his career practising employment law in the United States, where he handled trial and appellate litigation, labour tribunal proceedings, arbitration, and collective bargaining negotiations. He holds the CIPP/E certification in European data protection law and has worked and written extensively on data protection and digital privacy matters.
He is a member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (CIArb), the International Bar Association, the American Society of International Law, and the Middle East Studies Association, amongst other affiliations. He also serves on the advisory board of Verfassungsblog, a global public law forum.
Omar holds a JD from the University of Notre Dame Law School and an LLM from Yale Law School, where he is currently completing his doctorate (JSD). He is admitted as an attorney in California and Illinois and as a solicitor in England & Wales.
Omar is fluent in English and speaks Arabic.