George R. Salem is a member of the board of directors of the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. He serves as strategic advisor with DLA Piper, where he is focused on assisting in the development of DLA Piper’s Middle East and U.S. Department of Labor practices.

During the course of his 38-year career, Salem has negotiated some of the most significant settlements in the field of labor law. On behalf of various Middle East clients, Salem headed the legal teams that handled the acquisitions of major assets, including refineries in the Middle East, and has litigated major cases, including the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Sudan.

Salem is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law, Who’s Who in American Politics, Who’s Who in Finance and Industry, The International Who’s Who of Business Lawyers, The International Who’s Who of Management Labour and Employment Lawyers, Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business, Washington Super Lawyers and Corporate Counsel Super Lawyers, and The Best Lawyers in America. He was named by The National Law Journal as one of the top 26 labor lawyers in the United States. From 1985-89 he served as solicitor of labor, the U.S. Department of Labor’s chief legal officer, where he headed a staff of 850 lawyers in 13 national offices and 16 regional and subregional offices around the country. He is the first Palestinian Arab American to have been nominated by a president and confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

Salem played key roles in the campaigns of Presidents Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and George W. Bush. He chairs the Arab American Institute, which he co-founded in 1985, is past chairman of the National Association of Arab Americans, and has served on the board of the ADC. He has been on the board of trustees of United Palestinian Appeal, Inc. since 1982, and serves as treasurer of UPA.

Salem has served on the U.S. Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy in the Arab and Muslim World, and in 1992 received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, presented annually to Americans of diverse origins for outstanding contributions to their own ethnic groups and to American society.