Legal words
UAE Legal Glossary
A court letter, a contract clause or a lawyer’s email arrives, and half of it is in words nobody has explained.
People and roles
Advocate
A lawyer licensed to represent clients before the courts: to file, to appear, to argue.
Legal consultant, or legal advisor
A registered professional who advises, drafts and negotiates but does not plead in the local courts; both titles mean the same work here. Our guide on advocate or legal consultant goes further.
Legal translator
A translator licensed to produce Arabic translations the courts accept, which a fluent colleague cannot.
Court appointed expert
An independent specialist the court appoints to report on a technical question, such as accounts or building defects.
Notary public
An official who authenticates signatures and documents, including powers of attorney.
Power of attorney, and attorney-in-fact
A document authorising someone, the attorney-in-fact, to act for you. That person is often a lawyer but need not be. It must be notarised, and legalised and translated if signed abroad.
Courts and process
Court of First Instance
Where a case is filed and heard for the first time; most civil claims start here.
Court of Appeal
Reconsiders a first instance judgment when a party appeals.
Court of Cassation
The highest onshore level, which reviews how the law was applied rather than rehearing the facts.
Public Prosecution
Decides whether a criminal complaint goes forward: the police take the report, the prosecution decides what follows.
Execution court
Enforces a judgment, because winning and being paid are separate stages.
Case management
Where filing, service and document exchange happen before a matter reaches the judge.
Rental Dispute Centre
The RDC decides rental disputes between landlords and tenants in Dubai.
MOHRE
The Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation, where a complaint about work and pay usually starts.
Documents
Legal translation
Translation into Arabic by a licensed legal translator, needed because onshore proceedings run in Arabic.
Legalisation
The chain of official confirmations that makes a foreign document usable here. The UAE is not a party to the Apostille Convention, so foreign documents go through legalisation, not an apostille.
Attestation
A step in that chain, confirming a document or signature is genuine, as with foreign certificates in a family case.
True copy
A copy certified as matching the original, used where the original cannot be handed over.
Memorandum of association
A company’s constitutional document: its shareholders, its shares and how it is run.
Ejari
The Dubai system for registering a tenancy contract.
Title deed
The document recording who owns a property, held on the land register.
Money and claims
Precautionary attachment
A court order freezing an account or asset before or alongside a claim, granted on evidence and reaching only what is still there.
Execution
Enforcing a judgment through the execution court, which is how a debt is recovered.
Judgment debtor
The party a judgment orders to pay, which until execution is a liability, not money.
Security cheque
A cheque given as security for an obligation rather than as payment, held by a landlord, employer or lender. Being security does not by itself settle how it is treated, and the law on dishonoured cheques has changed recently.
End of service gratuity
What an employee is owed when employment ends, from qualifying service and part of the salary. See unpaid gratuity and salary.
Diya
Compensation that can arise where a person has been killed, payable to those the law identifies, separate from insurance and from a civil claim. Online it is loosely called blood money with a fixed figure attached, which we will not repeat.
Disputes outside court
Arbitration
Private determination of a dispute by a tribunal the parties chose instead of the courts.
Arbitral award
The tribunal’s decision. It binds the parties, but a court step is normally needed to enforce it.
Seat of arbitration
The legal home of the arbitration, which sets the procedural law and the supervising court, not where hearings happen. An onshore seat is not a DIFC or ADGM seat.
Mediation
A neutral third party helps the parties reach their own settlement, imposing nothing.
Conciliation
A similar process, often run as a formal stage by a court linked body before filing.
Amicable settlement
An agreement ending a dispute without a judgment, and the name for formal pre-court settlement stages.
Ask us about a word
Our legal guides go further on several of these, and legal fees explains how our charges work.
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