Doctoral dissertation writing and defending to complete the doctorate degree program is a true learning experience; an arduous mission, which entails knowledge of academic writing and confidence for dissertation defence to a satisfactory level. In the present research, the researchers have made an effort to divulge the foremost challenges faced by those ESL scholars, who had completed their degree in Doctor of Philosophy. By employing the survey technique, an online questionnaire containing four open-ended questions was sent to fifty research contributors from both genders via Email and WhatsApp for data collection. The data was analyzed by employing frequency and thematic approaches and presented in tables. The findings of the contemporary study explored that Pakistani ESL doctorate scholars faced multifarious challenges while writing and defending doctoral dissertations. The findings also explored solutions to overcome these challenges in the future, which makes it valuable research work for scholars and researchers in the future.