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Ranked as a “Leading Individual” by Chambers 2026 and as a “Recommended Lawyer” by The Legal 500 2026, Sulema is described by sources as a “fantastic, empathetic family lawyer” who “wins cases that other people think are impossible to win”. She is a Resolution Accredited Specialist in Child Abduction and Forced Marriage & Honour-based Violence.
Sulema has extensive experience of many aspects of domestic and international family law including child abduction, wardship, child arrangements orders, international relocation of children, jurisdictional disputes and the financial consequences of divorce and separation. She also acts for the victims of forced marriages, abandoned spouses and honour-based violence.
Ranked as a “Leading Individual” by Chambers 2026, she has acted in a huge number of reported cases, including in the appellate courts, which have led to judicial guidance in child abduction, wardship, enforcement, Schedule 1 (child maintenance) and forced marriage cases. Sulema is recognised for her expertise in complex domestic and international family law cases and has been described in the directories as “the go-to solicitor for vulnerable clients abroad”; “the most experienced person in the country in stranded spouse cases and forced marriages” and as having “exemplary experience of cross-border family cases.”
Sulema was part of a team who assisted in drafting additions to Practice Direction 12J of the Family Procedure Rules to include transnational marriage abandonment as a form of domestic abuse in 2016. Her successful findings in a case representing an abandoned spouse led to a landmark immigration case, AM v SSHD [2022] EWHC 2591, as a result of which the Home Office introduced a route for victims of transnational marriage abandonment to return to the UK.
As a dual qualified solicitor of the Senior Courts of England and Wales and an Advocate of the High Courts in Pakistan, she frequently works on cross border cases with Pakistan. Further, as an expert in Pakistani family law she regularly provides Expert Reports to courts, government bodies and tribunals across jurisdictions. She has acted in several reported judgements in the superior courts in Pakistan and assisted in advising parliamentary bodies in Pakistan in drafting laws for the protection of women, most notably legislation for a bill of prevention of domestic violence (in 2010), Acid and Burn Crimes Bill and the Harassment of Women at the Workplace Act 2010.
Sulema graduated from Cambridge University in 2003. She completed her training contract and qualification at magic circle law firm, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, before transferring into family law in 2010. She was made up to partner at Dawson Cornwell in 2021.
Prior to joining Dawson Cornwell, Sulema was a partner at AGHS Law Associates (the law firm of the late Asma Jahangir) which is the leading law firm specialising in family law and human rights work in Pakistan. In Pakistan, Sulema continues to act in a range of family and constitutional cases in the High Court and regularly writes about legal issues in Dawn (Pakistan’s most widely read English newspaper).
Sulema is a regular speaker at conferences and regularly appears on television (including BBC, ITV and Pakistani media channels), the radio and in the press. She writes publications and has been featured in articles for newspapers (including the Sunday Times, the News on Sunday) and journals on legal topics in Pakistan and in the United Kingdom.
Sulema was a visiting lecturer for “Gender and Development”, part of the MPhil course at the Centre of Development Studies, University of Cambridge.
She is a Fellow of the International Academy of Family Lawyers and former Chair of the Forced Marriage Committee. She is a member of Resolution, LAWASIA, the Pakistan Bar Council and the Lahore High Court Bar Association.
Sulema speaks fluent Urdu, Hindi and Punjabi.