‘It was definitely the best decision I’ve ever made to move here,’ Byron James says from his home in Al Barari, one of Dubai’s more exclusive enclaves. A rose-gold Richard Mille (RM 035) sits on his wrist – number six of only 50, he notes, holding the dial up to the screen – and behind him, a pool is set into a manicured garden.
James spent a decade at the English bar before he moved to the UAE in 2017. On paper, his career was progressing well – he was a qualified barrister with a dynamic family law practice – but he felt somewhat unfulfilled. ‘Was my future going to be travelling up and down the country to various regional family courts, deciding the same issues over and over again?’
The UAE presented itself as the alternative: a jurisdiction that James describes as fast-moving, ambitious and unafraid of reinvention. ‘It was an obvious place to move because it represents a lot of the very progressive and modern aspects of the world in one place,’ he says.
Within a few years of his arrival, the UAE began the most significant overhaul of its legal systems in the country’s history: it established civil family courts and, for the first time, allowed non-Muslim residents to divorce, divide assets and arrange custody under principles drawn from Western law rather than Sharia.
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James has since become one of the most sought-after family lawyers operating in the Gulf. As a partner at Expatriate Law, he has acted in what he believes are the five largest financial remedy cases in the UAE’s history – the biggest exceeding 1 billion dirhams (around £203 million). ‘I’ve found myself, in some ways, at the forefront of that [legal] revolution,’ he says.
[See also: Will ‘Child Focused Courts’ help or hinder the UK’s backlogged legal system?]
Influencing change
One example is a custody case that came before the Abu Dhabi court earlier this summer. James acted for a German father who wanted to stop his children appearing in the social media content of their mother, his ex-wife and a prominent influencer. The matter combined a fast-evolving jurisdiction with what was a relatively new, but increasingly widespread, phenomenon.
The UAE’s legal system adds a layer of complexity. Under the current laws, no photograph may be taken of anyone without their informed consent. And from June 2026, a new law defines anyone under 18 as a child – meaning consent to appear in social media content would need to be given by parents. ‘It’s like if a child needs an operation, their parents can consent to it on their behalf,’ he explains.
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James’s argument ventured into territory the UAE’s laws have not yet reached: if a child cannot consent and the right to consent passes to the parent, what happens when the parents are separated or they disagree? ‘Can a parent unilaterally consent on behalf of a child. I would say that they can’t,’ he argued in a 25-page memo put forward to the court. ‘A child cannot provide informed consent because they aren’t able to comprehend the wide-reaching nature of publishing online,’ he says.
Then there are the implications over which a child has no control, he adds. ‘A mother might have a brand association, using the child to model that brand. But hypothetically let’s say that brand has associations with something [the child] wouldn’t want to be linked to. What happens if that child grows up and wants to work for an organisation that strongly disapproves, but their picture is all over the internet endorsing it? Is that fair?’
In June 2026, the court handed down its judgment in which it ordered both parents to cease publishing photographs of their children on social media and to delete existing content that could harm the children’s interests. Any breach, it warned, could lead to the end of joint custody arrangements, or even imprisonment.
The implications could reach well beyond Dubai’s influencer circle. Within the UAE, any parent wishing to post images of their children to a wide public audience might potentially need the other parent’s explicit agreement – or avoid featuring their children in public or commercial content altogether. Beyond the UAE, the ruling would carry no binding force but it could offer a template other jurisdictions choose to follow. ‘I’ve had a lot of lawyers reach out to me about it from all over the world. This isn’t just a UAE issue. It’s a global issue and I think it’s a global parenting problem,’ James says.
UK courts versus English courts
It’s all a far cry from the cases James found himself working on in the UK. The flaws of the family courts in England run deeper than underfunding or understaffing, he argues. The ‘real problem’ is that the system is built to be adversarial. ‘Does the everyday person really need a forensic, high-conflict situation where you both have lawyers, you both have to do a Form E [to declare finances], you both have to provide all these documents? Or are people better served with a more efficient system that gets things done quickly, which means the animosity between the parties is much less?’
On the most complex cases – particularly those that have involved clarification around trusts, third-party interveners and the treatment of pre-marital wealth – James concedes that English law has no equal, the product of ‘decades of extremely impressive and clever people who deserve tremendous credit for really thinking about these problems’.
Does he accept the argument, still made reflexively by many English lawyers, that for all its faults the system in his home country remains the gold standard that other jurisdictions seek to emulate? ‘If anyone has walked into a court building anywhere in England and described that as a gold standard, they’ve got a very low bar,’ he remarks.
Away from the courtroom, James is also a serious collector of watches. ‘Though I think the right term is enthusiast,’ he corrects. Across 12 years, he has amassed a collection of timepieces from Richard Mille, Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet and Rolex. Some he acquires through authorised dealers, with whom he has long-cultivated relationships, saying: ‘A bit like if you want to buy a Birkin, you can’t just walk in and ask for one.’ Others come from hunting the grey market for particular pieces that are sold by dealers outside of the brands’ official boutiques or retailers – sometimes at a hefty premium. ‘I’m a proper geek about watches, to be honest.’
It’s clearly a passion, but it serves a professional purpose, too: he posts images of the pieces on LinkedIn, often alongside commentary targeted at UAE-based divorced fathers who may wish to spend more time with their children. (‘It has been 16 weeks, 4 days since I last saw my children, a dad told me today. Time lost, never recovered,’ he wrote in one post, under an image of his wrist bearing a Patek Philippe Aquanaut.)
James says that many of the timepieces he bought before the watch market picked up in the early 2020s are now worth multiples of what he paid. He got in at a good time and has stayed in the market long enough to see it rise. You might say the same thing about his day job.
