Sermid Dean Al-Sarraf is General Counsel for DSLM. He graduated from Whittier Law School in California and practiced in the fields of commercial law, public contracting, real property, transitional justice and international legal and constitutional reform. After working five years in the non-profit arena to restore the Rule of Law in Iraq and rebuild key legal and judicial institutions, Mr. Al-Sarraf discovered a pressing need for a professional legal service-provider to serve the growing foreign, expat and international presence in Iraq.

A California attorney of Iraqi descent, Mr. Al-Sarraf was admitted to the Iraqi Bar Association in 2005, becoming one of the first U.S.-trained lawyers to be licensed to practice in Iraq. In recognition of his expertise, Mr. Al-Sarraf has appeared in U.S. federal court as an expert witness and has provided expert testimony in multiple cases before the UK High Court on matters involving the application of Iraqi law.

He is also the Executive Director and co-founder of the International Institute for the Rule of Law (IIRL), an Iraq-based NGO and its U.S. counterpart, IIRL Inc., a California public benefit corporation. IIRL managed the Rule of Law program in Iraq for the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) for over three years and previously implemented the Rule of Law Coordination Project for the UK Embassy in Baghdad.

Prior to these engagements, Mr. Al-Sarraf was the Director of Iraq Programs for the American Bar Association (ABA) during which time he provided legal technical assistance to the Iraqi Constitutional Drafting Committee. Before this, he was the Chief of Party (in Baghdad) for the USAID-funded project entitled, “Raising the Bar: Legal Education Reform in Iraq” implemented through the DePaul University-based International Human Rights Law Institute (IHRLI).