August in Cairo can be unpleasant even for longtime denizens of the Egyptian capital. With temperatures soaring into the triple digits, many of the city’s more fortunate residents head north to summer homes near Alexandria on the Mediterranean Sea.
For Omar Bassiouny, managing partner of Cairo’s Matouk Bassiouny, it wasn’t the heat, but clouds of tear gas that convinced him it was time to leave town. The offices of his 40-lawyer firm, which forged an alliance with DLA Piper in 2005, sit behind Cairo’s Four Seasons Hotel, about a mile from the pitched battles playing out between Egypt’s dueling political factions in Tahrir Square.
