Mohamed
Abdulkadir Ali

Mohamed is the partner international clients usually meet first — the bridge between how global institutions buy legal services and how Somalia actually works.

His career has run through both worlds: US corporate practice and constitutional-drafting work at DLA Piper — including legislative support for Kosovo's Ministry of Justice and Afghan constitutional documents — commercial and cross-border regulatory work at an Ohio firm, then a decade of Somalia's hardest economic-reform assignments.

Before co-founding Insaaf, he led the legal side of Somalia's port-sector modernization for the Ministry of Ports and the Mogadishu Port Authority — analysing the port concession agreement for the government, supporting redraft negotiations, and developing the PPP and concession models that shaped later reform. He served as senior legal advisor to the Kismayo Port Authority, led the World Bank's national market study of Somali financial services — advising the Central Bank and Ministry of Finance — led Somalia's PPP-framework rapid assessment, and ran the legal workstream of a World Bank–financed business-environment reform programme in Somaliland.

He is trained as a lawyer — JD, Boston College Law School — and is not admitted to practice; Somali-law advice at Insaaf is delivered by the firm's licensed Somali practitioners, with Mohamed leading strategy, structuring and the international client relationship. It is a division of labour international counsel recognise: he speaks their language because he has done their work.

He is a member of the International Bar Association, serves on American Bar Association committees including Corporate & M&A and International Trade & Customs, and speaks internationally on business in fragile states — including at the World Bank, the G20 Young Entrepreneurs' Alliance and TED, where his talks have been viewed more than 800,000 times. He is a 2025 McNulty Prize winner and an Aspen Institute fellow.

WRITING — SOMALIA LAW BLOG

Before you negotiate a Somalia concession, ask who can grant the right → Doing business in Somalia in 2026: the legal questions to answer before you enter (editor) →

CONTACT MOHAMED ABOUT

Or start with the firm — conflicts checked before anything is confirmed.