ConstructHER Global Legal Network is a new global initiative dedicated to women in construction and infrastructure law. It brings together practitioners, students, and allied professionals across jurisdictions with a shared purpose: to strengthen visibility, recognition, and meaningful professional exchange in a field that remains largely male dominated.
Construction and infrastructure law is commercially intense and technically demanding. The real learning rarely happens in classrooms. It happens on live projects, inside EPC contracts, through claims strategy, in negotiations, and in dispute proceedings. Much of that knowledge remains informal and invisible. ConstructHER Global Legal Network has been created to bring those conversations into one trusted professional space.
The network connects women across diverse roles, including legal practice, contract administration, claims management, arbitration, mediation, and project delivery across jurisdictions. It also welcomes students and aspiring professionals who want to understand how construction and infrastructure law operates in practice, not just in theory.
As a newly formed platform, ConstructHER Global Legal Network is focused on experience led discussions, curated knowledge sharing, member spotlights, and focused sessions on construction contracts, claims management, risk allocation, and dispute resolution. The objective is not symbolic dialogue, but substantive engagement rooted in real industry practice.
Founder, Mehak Oberoi conceptualized the initiative after years of working across projects, jurisdictions, and disputes within the construction industry. A consistent pattern stood out: women were contributing meaningfully to complex, high value matters, yet their work and voices were often less visible in industry forums. The network is an effort to change that dynamic by making experience visible, encouraging rigorous professional dialogue, and ensuring fewer women navigate this industry in isolation.
The network is guided by a distinguished Steering Committee comprising Mary Mutupa, Vice Chairperson, CIArb and Managing Partner, iSettle Management Consultants; Iryna Akulenka, Director, HKA, UAE; Thara Gopalan, Vice President, AAA-ICDR; Kaadambari Singh, Senior Advocate; Rashmi Kathpalia, Advocate and Former General Counsel; Shweta Bharti, Managing Partner, Hammurabi & Solomon Partners; Jo Delaney, Partner, HKW Australia and Apoorva Dixit, Associate Professor, GD Goenka University. Their presence anchors the network in credibility, institutional insight, and international perspective.
The network formally begins its journey with its inaugural global webinar on 9 March titled “Missing From the Table: Why Women Remain Underrepresented in Construction Law.” In collaboration with American Arbitration Association – International Centre for Dispute Resolution. The discussion will bring together leaders from multiple jurisdictions to examine representation not as a symbolic issue, but through the lens of technical competence, commercial accountability, and decision-making power in construction and infrastructure projects.
This inaugural discussion marks the first step in what the network intends to build as an ongoing series of structured, practice driven conversations across jurisdictions.
ConstructHER Global Legal Network invites women professionals, students, institutions, and industry stakeholders to join, collaborate, and contribute to building a more visible, credible, and commercially grounded future for construction and infrastructure law.