Thomas Snider

Thomas Snider is a Partner and the firm’s Head of Arbitration based in the Dubai office. He is experienced in international commercial arbitration, international investment disputes, state-to-state arbitration, and foreign sovereign immunity issues. His experience covers a wide range of industries, sectors, and types of disputes, including oil-and-gas, construction, hospitality, telecommunications, automobile manufacturing, distribution agreements, shareholder disputes, and joint-venture disputes.

Tom is ranked for dispute resolution in Chambers United Arab Emirates (2021), which notes that “Tom’s knowledge and expertise is extremely impressive” and that “he has the ability to advise and write with an uncommon degree of precision and clarity.” In the Legal 500 United Arab Emirates (2020), Tom was described as having “cross-examination skills [that] are excellent. He listens hard, is polite to witnesses and yet wields an iron fist beneath his velvet glove.”  In 2021, Lexology’s Client Choice recognized Tom for Arbitration & ADR in the United Arab Emirates. Client Choice, which is unique in that lawyers can only be nominated by corporate counsel, recognizes those lawyers who stand apart for excellent client care and have “an ability to add real value to clients’ business above and beyond the other players in the market”. Tom is also listed in Who’s Who Legal Future Leaders – Arbitration.

Tom has sat as an arbitrator and is on the panel of arbitrators of several arbitral institutions around the world. He is also a member of the Court of Arbitration of the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC), the Arbitration Committee of the Lagos Court of Arbitration (LCA), and the International Arbitration Committee of KCAB International (an independent division of the Korean Commercial Arbitration Board).

Tom frequently writes and speaks on topics involving international law and dispute resolution.  Prior to relocating to Dubai, he was a professorial lecturer in law at the George Washington University Law School in Washington, DC.

From 2001 to 2009, Tom was a member of the legal team representing the Ethiopian Government before the Eritrea-Ethiopia Claims Commission, an international arbitral tribunal that adjudicated claims for loss, damage and injury arising during an international armed conflict.  In this context, he worked as a resident attorney in Addis Ababa for three years.