An Iraqi law firm covering all aspects of Iraqi law for business.

United Partners for Legal Services and Legal Consultancy LLC (United Legal Partners, "ULP") is a licensed Iraqi legal services company, incorporated under the Companies Law No. 21 of 1997 with corporate incorporation number C.R. 2-35865, and licensed by the Iraqi Bar Association. The firm covers all aspects of Iraqi law for business, from corporate, tax and compliance to energy, customs, banking, healthcare, disputes and regulatory work. The firm was established and is run by senior Iraqi attorneys with more than two decades of continuous practice before the Iraqi judiciary, the federal ministries and the institutions of the provinces and the Kurdistan Region.

The firm is led by three partners. Bassam Breesam, in practice before the Iraqi Bar Association since 2002 with rights of audience in Baghdad, Basra and Erbil, holds an LL.B. from the University of Baghdad and an LL.M. in International Commercial Law from the University of California, Davis. Kareem Yousef is a litigation and regulatory attorney, in the legal field since 2002, whose work is in pleadings and disputes in government contracts, tax and customs; he leads the firm's field team and its day-to-day interface with the Iraqi government departments. Bilal Faisal covers corporate, employment, immigration and social security compliance for companies operating in Federal Iraq, from registration and good standing to work visas, residency and security clearances for expatriate staff.

In Iraq the limited liability company is the corporate form recognised for law firms. It lets us engage clients through a juristic person that keeps audited accounts, issues invoices recognised by the Iraqi tax authorities and signs long-term engagement letters that are enforceable against the company rather than against an individual lawyer, while the partners' Bar admissions, rights of audience and accumulated experience continue through it without interruption.

How we work

We work in Arabic and English on an integrated basis. The advice goes out in the language the client reads, and the document that goes to the ministry, the tax authority or the court goes in the form that authority accepts. Every engagement has a single point of contact at partner level who is answerable for the whole matter, and behind him the associate team and the supporting staff who handle the registrations, the filings and the follow-up with the government offices.

Our clients range from Iraqi companies and family businesses to regional groups and international companies, and to the law firms and in-house counsel who advise them. Whoever the client, we apply the same documentation and risk-allocation standards: written advice with the legal basis cited, a clear separation between what the law says and what we expect the authority to do in practice, and a file that can be audited later.

Each mandate has an engagement partner, a working team drawn from the relevant office and specialisation, a documented intake checklist at opening, periodic reporting on a weekly or agreed cadence, and for continuing-compliance mandates a monthly or quarterly compliance dashboard the client can review at any time. The firm runs conflict checks at matter opening and at any change in the client group of a mandate, and handles client documents and personnel data under the confidentiality obligations of the Iraqi legal profession, with controlled access and organised filing.

Where we work

Baghdad is the seat of the firm and of the federal ministries, the General Commission for Taxes, the Registrar of Companies, the State Shura Council and the Court of Cassation. Basra is where most oil and gas operations and their contractors are, where the labour and social security offices that matter to them sit, and where the Umm Qasr and Khor Al-Zubair ports and their customs offices are; four of our associates are based there. Erbil covers the Kurdistan Region, whose investment, company and labour regimes differ from the federal ones in important points; our Erbil team has rights of audience before the KRG courts, works with the Ministry of Natural Resources and the other KRG institutions, and covers Sulaymaniyah and Duhok as well. Having people in all three cities means we do not advise from a distance on a procedure we have not seen done.

Meet the team