About the Founder

First called to the bar in 1954, Prof. Mohamed Ibrahim Khalil practiced before the Sudan High Court and Court of Appeal, being mostly engaged in civil and commercial law cases. On joining the Ministry of Justice in 1958 he was actively involved as senior legal counsel, and later Deputy Attorney General, in developing what was then an incipient government organ into a full fledged Attorney General's department. Khalil had overall responsibility for the civil law and the legislative drafting units of the ministry. His responsibilities included preparation for, and supervision of arbitration proceedings relating to the settlement of disputes with Sudanese and foreign corporations. In that behalf he supervised the training of young legal counsels and their placement in overseas institutions for post graduate studies.
As legal counsel to the Kuwait Arab Development Fund (1976-85), Khalil was involved in development and investment law and practice. His duties in that capacity included negotiation and drafting of development loans between the Kuwait Fund and developing countries and of project consulting agreements and construction contracts. Overall responsibility for monitoring of project implementation fell on the shoulders of the Fund's legal advisors. In the discharge of such responsibilities, Professor Khalil was involved in more than thirty projects in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Where disputes arose over project implementation between the developing country and a consulting firm or a construction contractor, the same was settled by arbitration, and it was Khalil's responsibility to assist the borrowing country in the preparation for and the conduct of such arbitration.
During his involvement in the politics of the second (1965-1968) and third (1986-1988) democratic governments, Professor Khalil held ministerial portfolios of Local Government, Justice, Foreign Affairs, as well as Speaker of Parliament.
In the United States, Professor Khalil held the positions of scholar, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Pease Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace, and Scholar in Residence at the Middle East Institute of which he retains the title of Adjunct Scholar. During 1990-91 he served as Special Consultant for the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes which commissioned him to undertake a survey of over 300 bilateral investment treaties between industrial and developing countries. Professor Khalil's report was issued as a World Bank publication.
Professor Khalil was the first dean of law and head of the private law department at the University of Khartoum, and between 1971 and 1976 was the dean and president of the Council for Islamic Legal Studies at Ahmadu Bello University, Nigeria, where he taught commercial, criminal, and constitutional law, as well as comparative jurisprudence.
Along with teaching and supervising post-graduate law students, Professor Khalil now devotes his time exclusively to legal practice under the business name: "Bureau of Business & Investment Law"