
At RIAA Barker Gillette Pakistan, we believe every client is unique and tailor our services to meet your needs. Simply stated, our objective is to look after your best interests in the most efficient manner. While working with you, we shoulder the burden, taking a step back to take stock of the bigger picture and the effect it might have, freeing you to focus on what is truly important.
Easily accessible and based in the heart of Pakistan’s major cities: Karachi, Lahore, and Islamabad , we specialise in corporate, commercial and dispute resolution law. We provide clients with a broad spectrum of premium legal advisory services, including private and public corporations, financial institutions and family business groups.
With substantial on-the-ground capability and over 35 years of history globally, RIAA Barker Gillette has become an alliance of law firms you can rely on with total confidence. Our team of professionals is well-versed in advising domestic and multinational clients and has extensive experience in complex, cross-border work.
We have benefited from global expansion, allowing us to improve and increase our client services. We have fought hard to retain our approachable and collegiate feel and pride ourselves on the expertise, accessibility and flair of our partners, all of which make us who we are today. We are committed to providing the highest standards of legal services and offering a commercial perspective designed to help our clients reach their business goals.
About RIAA Barker Gillette
Founded in 1981
500 people in their team
Practice areas
Languages spoken
Social media
Practice areas
Business
Corporate
We provide our clients with the full spectrum of corporate and M&A legal advisory services, comprising a cross-section of industries and sectors. We act for public and private organisations, family business groups, and entrepreneurs.
We understand businesses and help them to evaluate and maintain their vision, constitution, composition, revenue and tax positions. We take the time to understand a business’s needs and operational and financial objectives to help build a successful and profitable enterprise.
We advise officers and directors on their duties and liabilities and negotiate and draft all types of contracts and agreements (including partnership and shareholder agreements). We regularly advise on complex domestic and cross-border business and financing transactions and provide general counsel services on various issues, including asset management and corporate expansion. Our dispute resolution lawyers are able to handle a wide range of corporate disputes, amongst others.
Renowned for our precision and swift delivery of our advice, we focus on results and devising the best possible commercial solutions. We also provide general corporate services such as corporate secretarial support to keep your organisation up-to-date and in good standing with both the provincial and federal authorities.
Banking & Finance
Energy, Environment & ESG
Lawsuits & Disputes
We consider carefully with our clients the respective merits of each party’s position, focusing on the real issues in dispute, the risks involved, and the suitability of all forms of resolution, be it by way of litigation, arbitration or alternative forms of dispute resolution (ADR) such as mediation or expert determination, thereby keeping your costs in check.
Corporate & Commercial
Employment & Labor
Our clients cross various business sectors, including banking and finance, recruitment, professional services, education, healthcare and media. This diversity gives us the advantage when assessing the needs of your business and providing employment advice and services.
We work closely with our clients to produce suitable documentation and to guide them through this ever more complex area of law. We offer both a contentious and non-contentious service.
Our non-contentious team can provide you with HR advice and bespoke suites of employment documentation such as staff handbooks, policies and procedures.
Our contentious team can advise on redundancies and transfers, both small-scale and collective, dealing with grievances and disciplinary issues as well as claims, obtaining injunctive relief for the misuse of confidential information and breaches of post-termination restrictions, and Court actions.
We assist local and foreign corporates with all aspects of labour and employment law concerns, such as day-to-day labour and immigration law issues, social security, hirings, terminations and layoffs, compensation arrangements, wages and stock option schemes, and negotiations with trade unions.
Our expertise extends to assisting our transactional counterparts with the labour aspects of M&A, joint ventures and corporate reorganisations. Our dispute resolution expertise ensures that we are regularly involved in contentious proceedings before national labour courts, labour appellate tribunals, and other forums.
The presence of specialist employment lawyers across our international network of offices ensures that we are well placed to advise on specific local issues, as well as coordinate cross-border advice and handle the labour aspects of multijurisdictional transactions.
Real Estate
Our property and real estate team advise lenders (private and institutional) and borrowers on secured lending.
We recognise that a well-documented and drafted property and real estate transaction will deliver on our client’s expectations. Equally, where there is a need for litigation expertise, our property litigation team are well able to find solutions.
Our property and real estate experts handle the full range of commercial and residential services. Specialists based in offices across our network have intimate knowledge of the real estate sectors in those jurisdictions and can assist with all types of investments, divestitures and ongoing matters.
Our commercial practice advises on investment properties, offices, developments, retail properties, landlord & tenant issues, leaseholds, and enfranchisement. Our expertise in Pakistan includes a range of construction projects in the energy, natural resources and infrastructure sectors.
RIAA Barker Gillette Pakistan’s construction practice has advised on many energy and infrastructure projects, including large dams, airports, commercial buildings, highways, pipeline projects, refineries, thermal power projects, cement plants, and telecommunication projects. We are well-equipped to advise on the full spectrum of issues affecting the construction industry, from bidding documents and all forms of construction contracts to contract management and dispute resolution (ADR), including arbitrations (domestic and international).
Our Partners and Associates

Yousaf Khosa is based in Islamabad and is recognised as one of the leading corporate lawyers in Pakistan, and possesses significant corporate and litigation expertise.
He is an Advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan and leads the litigation team in Islamabad. His sector specialisms include construction, oil and gas, and telecommunications.
He has acted as counsel in more than 700 litigation matters in various courts of Pakistan, in addition to quasi-judicial and regulatory tribunals. He is also well regarded for his record of success in domestic and international arbitration proceedings (under ICC, UNCITRAL, ICSID, Pakistan Engineering Council and Pakistan Arbitration Act rules).
Yousaf possesses extensive construction expertise, having dealt with all kinds of local and international forms of construction contracts. He has also been extensively involved in Pakistan’s petroleum and mining sectors, providing legal services to our petroleum and mining clients. He has also been part of several teams involved in drafting some of the significant petroleum laws of Pakistan.
Yousaf has extensive experience advising clients on capital markets, corporate law, and mergers and acquisitions. He is particularly proficient in deals involving the setting up, acquisition and sale of businesses in Pakistan.
Yousaf also advises on joint ventures, corporate restructuring, regulatory and general corporate matters. He has advised on telecoms laws in Pakistan and Afghanistan as legal advisor and litigation counsel.

Mazhar Bangash heads Pakistan’s Trade Law Department from our Islamabad office and services international clients operating in Afghanistan.
Mazhar’s expertise in international trade law has been recognised in Pakistan and internationally; he was recently appointed as a panellist at the WTO for trade disputes.
His international trade expertise includes WTO trade remedy instruments (anti-dumping, countervailing and safeguard measures); tariff-related matters (tariff and non-tariff assistance/protection to the domestic industries); customs; trade policy incentives; WTO dispute settlement; and free and preferential trade agreements.
Mazhar previously worked at the National Tariff Commission and the Trade Remedy Investigating Authority of Pakistan, where he was their Chief Legal Officer. He was involved in drafting and implementing anti-dumping, countervailing and safeguards Pakistan’s laws. Mazhar successfully defends exporters facing anti-dumping investigations at various international forums.
Mazhar Bangash has made significant contributions to Afghanistan’s jurisdiction. He advises multinational companies and NGOs on their corporate matters in the country, including registrations/incorporations, government approvals, licensing, good governance, and compliance with regulatory requirements.
He has additionally conducted extensive reviews of Afghanistan’s civil and commercial, telecommunication, energy, property, criminal, labour, banking, tax, and public procurement laws.

Nadir Altaf is based in Islamabad and specialises in project financing, energy, corporate/commercial, regulatory law and dispute resolution.
He has acted on multi-billion dollar investments in Pakistan’s infrastructure and energy sector; handled regulatory matters; negotiated and finalized project documents, EPC and O&M contracts; and handled commercial and legal issues concerning all technologies, including thermal and renewable energy.
His energy and natural resources expertise includes the development of large hydro, gas or coal power projects and other thermal power projects, solar power projects and wind projects. He also acts for public sector entities on matters relating to the distribution, wheeling, transmission, generation and sale of electricity.
His clientele includes leading business houses of Pakistan, local and foreign sponsors and lenders, commissioned independent power producers (IPPs), captive power producers (CPPs), small power producers (SPPs), new captive power producers (NCPPs), off-grid projects and bulk power consumers.
Nadir Altaf represents clients in litigation and arbitration involving corporate and commercial matters. He has represented clients in the high courts and civil courts in writ jurisdiction, statutory, contractual and tortious claims.