Alumni Profile - Dr Ehab Elsonbaty

28 September 2026

Dr Ehab Elsonbaty (Law PhD, 2004) has built an international legal career spanning the Egyptian judiciary, Amiri Diwan, Qatar Investment Authority and international private practice. He is now a Partner at DLA Piper and Chair of the US/Middle East Initiative.

In the QMUL interview blog, he reflects on the influence of Queen Mary’s comparative approach to law and the experiences that have shaped his career, from the judiciary and government to international private practice. He also discusses his work with international organisations, recent teaching at NYU School of Law and his continued connection with the Queen Mary community.

Ehab says: "By the time I came to Queen Mary, I was already serving in the Egyptian judiciary, and I could see that the questions arriving before the courts were increasingly international in nature. I wanted the academic depth to match — a rigorous, comparative grounding that judicial practice alone could not give me. Queen Mary's reputation in commercial law made it the natural choice, coming from Egypt meant I could bridge the two legal worlds I have inhabited ever since: the civil law tradition I was trained in, and the common law world in which so much of international commerce is conducted. My research focused on e-commerce, IT and commercial law, fields that were then emerging and have since become central to global practice."

Read the rest of Ehab's interview online.