AFTERMATH OF WAR : U.S. Law Firm Has Mixed Feelings on Kuwait Return

For the lawyers who once staffed the Kuwaiti branch of the California law firm Graham & Jones--the only American lawyers with an office in the emirate--the end of the Gulf War is a bittersweet moment.

The firm, whose Kuwait operation is a joint venture with a Kuwaiti law firm, will resume operations as soon as possible--perhaps within a couple of weeks. Business should be brisk as Western companies scramble to get a piece of the reconstruction pie.

But at least three of Graham & Jones’ lawyers will not be able to return to Kuwait. A fourth--Kuwaiti national Nader Al-Awadhi--might not even be alive.

The situation of the seven attorneys who worked in the office before the Aug. 2 Iraqi invasion reflects the trauma and dislocation created by the war.

Anis Kassim, a Palestinian who is managing partner of the office, said Thursday that he was “thrilled that the Kuwaitis have regained their country,” where he lived happily for 15 years.

But he cannot entirely share the joy of his many Kuwaiti friends.

“I’ve decided not to return to Kuwait,” Kassim said from his refuge in Nicosia, Cyprus. “It will be a very hostile environment for Palestinians”--a reference to the ill will, bordering on vengefulness, many Kuwaitis are expressing toward a community that largely sided with Iraq.

Kassim said he would like to continue working with his clients. But as a Palestinian with a Jordanian passport, the U.S.-educated lawyer is unsure of his options.

A Jordanian and a Sudanese who had worked for Graham & Jones will almost certainly be prohibited from returning to Kuwait because their governments backed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Politics dictates that two Egyptian lawyers, on the other hand, will be able to resume their jobs.

Mamoun Hariri, an American of Palestinian descent, will play a key role in rebuilding the firm’s operations. He is eager to get to the task, Hariri said Thursday--despite the trauma he and his family endured after the Iraqi invasion.

“Leaving was not an option for us, because my wife was pregnant and she was due in a week,” he recalled. They prepared for a home birth but were finally able to sneak into a hospital for the delivery, then sneak back out without being discovered by the Iraqis.

Hariri’s American wife and children left Kuwait shortly thereafter on one of the first evacuation flights; he followed in mid-October. While still in occupied Kuwait, he said, he used his fluent Arabic to help others who feared being identified as Westerners.

Now, Hariri is working out of Graham & James’ office in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, “laying the foundations for the reopening of the office in Kuwait,” a step he expects in a few weeks. Hariri said he anticipates some “tensions and emotions in the short term, but in the long run, 16 months or two years, the situation will be normalized.”

Michael Cavanaugh, chairman of Graham & James, said his prime concern is Kuwaiti lawyer Nader Al-Awadhi, with whom the firm lost contact early in the conflict.

“We’re fearful about him,” Cavanaugh said. “Our biggest hope is that he’s OK and that he can re-establish operations.”

Cavanaugh was pleased to see on television that his firm’s building is still standing. Hariri said most of the files were still there the last time he was in the office--though the computers and the telephones were gone.

But there will be plenty of business to support the refurbishing of the office.

“There are already quite a few things going on with clients who have contracts for the reconstruction,” Cavanaugh said. “There’s going to be very heavy demand for legal work, and we want to respond to that.”

And he doesn’t have any qualms about operating in a country that won’t let some of his lawyers in.

“Each individual situation is different. We have lawyers with different nationalities, and it does affect where they can operate,” Cavanaugh said. “We see a role and opportunity for ourselves. We are attorneys who serve the interests of private clients, and we have never injected ourselves into these political situations.”