KOCHI: For Musthafa Zafeer OV and his wife Almana Zafeer, who was recently honoured with the ‘Golden visa’ by the UAE government, the recognition is a big moment to cherish — their journey in the Gulf country starting from a chance visit to Dubai for attending the famed shopping festival in 1996 to establishing their law firm that addresses hundreds of expatriate Malayalees’ legal issues back home.
The ‘Golden visa’ which enables foreigners to live, work and study in the UAE without a national sponsor and with 100 per cent ownership of their business on the UAE’s mainland, comes at the right time for their Dubai-headquartered international law and consultancy firm Musthafa & Almana, as it is charting the next phase of growth.
Musthafa and Almana began their careers in a small way, practising at the Thalassery district court back in 1987 and early 1991 respectively; the latter started practising after she got married. The couple met at the Government Law College, Ernakulam, where they both were pursuing a law degree in the late 1980s. “We met each other at the law college and got married in 1988,” says Musthafa.
Since then, it’s been a successful and fruitful journey together for them in their personal and professional lives. While Musthafa graduated and enrolled in 1987, Almana graduated in 1991 and enrolled the same year. “Both of us started our legal practice in Thalassery District Court,” adds Almana.
In 1992, Musthafa & Almana opened its first office in Kozhikkode, and in 1993, the firm started its office in Kochi and began practice in the High Court of Kerala.
“The move to Dubai was very unintentional. We visited Dubai for the first edition of the Dubai Shopping Festival in 1996. And we were the first Indian family to land in Dubai as shopping festival visitors,” recollects Musthafa. During that visit, a lot of Indians approached the couple with their legal issues in India.
“This prompted us to open an office in UAE to take care of their legal requirements back home in India. Accordingly, we entered into a joint venture with a local law firm and started our office in UAE in the year 1997,” adds Almana.
Some of the landmark cases helmed by Musthafa & Alamana include the Calicut airport’s decision to scrap the user’s fee in 2003, which helped the Gulf-bound passengers, and a timeshare holidays case involving Goa-based resort RGBC, where the firm helped a large number of UAE-based residents on their investment.
As the UAE practice became successful, the firm started looking at other countries and in 2010 opened in the UK followed by the USA (NewYork) in 2014, and the Netherlands in 2017 and Australia in 2018.
In 2019, MALIC (Musthafa Almana Legal Innovation Centre ) was set up in Kochi. As far as the next-gen is concerned, the couple’s two sons — Azhan Backer and Zahan Backer — are both Ivy League-educated legal professionals.