Sarah Malik is an award-winning lawyer who founded SOL International Ltd, a boutique legal consultancy registered at the ADGM in 2018. Sarah achieved ‘Litigator of the Year’ (2022) at the first GCC Women in Law Awards and received an honourable mention as ‘Law Firm Leader of the Year’ category at the same awards. In March 2022, SOL was named by Legal 500 EMEA as ‘A Firm to Watch in Dispute Resolution: Arbitration and International Litigation’. In 2023 Sarah was listed as a ‘leading practitioner’ in The Arbitration Powerlist: Middle East Legal 500 EMEA.

Prior to founding SOL she practiced as a Barrister at a leading set of Commercial Chambers in London for fifteen years, was employed Counsel at a leading UK law firm for two years and headed the Advocacy and Investigations team of an international law firm in Dubai for three and a half years.

Sarah was featured in the special edition of the UAE Managing Partners Report for two consecutive years published by LexisNexis for International Women’s Day.

Sarah advises clients in the UAE and internationally on all aspects of employment and labour law issues.

Sarah undertakes all aspects of employment work and has a busy employment law practice, both contentious and non-contentious, at the DIFC and the ADGM Courts as well as undertaking cross border employment matters. In addition, she runs high-level disputes and negotiates senior level severance packages.

She has carried out investigations and disciplinary meetings on behalf of Clients in the UAE and internationally with a track record of high-profile investigations.  She has authored various articles on employment law for the LexisNexis Middle East Law and HR Alert. Within the DIFC, she is the go-to lawyer to settle lawyer disputes between lawyers and law firms.

Sarah is appointed as visiting lecturer on the LLM course at Middlesex University, Dubai and co-devised a UAE and DIFC Employment Law module for the LLM for both postgraduate students and industry.

Sarah is regularly invited to speak at conferences within the UAE, GCC and internationally for the ICC and at the IBA.

In November 2025, Sarah will be involved in the ICC and IBA in Toronto.

In March 2025, Sarah co-authored an article entitled ‘Navigating the ADGM Employment Regulations 2024: What’s Changed?’.

She regularly conducts training for students, legal professionals, corporates and government organisations on Unconscious Bias in the workplace, Gender and Equal Pay and various other aspects of employment.

Sarah was instructed as Counsel on the first race discrimination claim against a multi-national bank before the DIFC Courts in 2023.

In October 2023, Sarah spoke on ‘Prosecuting and Defending Complaints For Employer Violations of Workplace Health and Safety and Psychological Duties.’ at the IBA Conference in Paris.

In May 2022, she spoke at the Women in Law Forum, organised by the UK Ministry of Justice on ‘Bias, Behaviour and Belonging’.

In addition to employment law, Sarah has a busy litigation and dispute resolution practice and teaches for the DIFC Academy. She is often used as external counsel and advocate by law firms and in-house clients and acts as personal advisor to Ultra High Net Worth private clients. She is known as a straight-talking, no-nonsense lawyer and her approach and commitment has resulted in a loyal client following.