For the first year, Best Lawyers is thrilled to announce the expansion of our Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch awards in Brazil! Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch awards highlight the growing legal talent among private practice lawyers earlier in their careers. The methodology followed to determine recognitions is the same Purely Peer Review™ methodology we have used for more than four decades for traditional Best Lawyers awards. The goal of Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch is to honor lawyers who have been practicing between three and eight years and are already making notable strides in their legal careers.
This year also saw a remarkable 53% increase in voter participation for Best Lawyers awards in Brazil, and below, we offer some of the most notable details of the 2024 Best Lawyers awards in Brazil.
The Best Lawyers in Brazil™ 2024
We are pleased to announce the 14th edition of the esteemed awards, The Best Lawyers in Brazil. For 14 editions, we have showcased the legal talent and acumen of Brazil’s most notable lawyers. This year’s awards honor 2,469 lawyers across 66 practice areas and 15 metropolitan areas. São Paulo has the most recognized lawyers, followed by Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, Brasília and Rio Grande do Sul.
In addition to the individual awards, we also honored 103 “Lawyer of the Year” recipients for the 14th edition. "Lawyer of the Year" honors are awarded annually to only one lawyer per practice area in each region with extremely high overall feedback from their peers, making it an exceptional distinction.
Among the 66 practice areas that include awards, this year saw the addition of Water Law. Kimberly Welsh, Best Lawyers Research Analyst Manager, explains that Water Law was chosen as a new practice area for 2024 due to the volume feedback received from the legal community in this year's research process.
Welsh also explained the increased engagement regarding Arbitration and Mediation, the practice area with the largest increase of recognized lawyers this edition and website searches on the Best Lawyers website. Regarding it’s jump in popularity, Welsh explained: “Brazil has one of the busiest court systems in the world, with roughly 77 million active lawsuits in 2021, and it takes an average of 30 months to obtain an initial ruling. Alternative dispute resolution paths may be gaining popularity as a way to resolve disputes much more quickly, as resolution takes an average of roughly 18 months—nearly half the time.”
The other nine practice areas with the most recognized lawyers, in order, are: Corporate and M&A Law, Tax Law, Litigation, Intellectual Property Law, Administrative Law, Capital Markets Law, Banking and Finance Law, Labor and Employment Law and Competition / Antitrust Law.
Welsh also noted Insolvency and Reorganization Law, which not only saw a large increase in online searches this year, but also had an increase of more than 11% of lawyers selected by their peers for inclusion in the 2024 rankings. Welsh explained, “Brazil is experiencing many of the same economic issues as the rest of the world (conflicts affecting supply chains and commerce and an interest rate increase) and has also been affected by the insolvency of a large retailer that further impacted their credit markets. As a result, there is an increased need for Insolvency and Reorganization guidance for Brazilian businesses of all sizes. A bankruptcy reform measure intended to increase the efficiency of their insolvency system, the Brazilian Bankruptcy Law, was enacted in 2020, but a lot of its measures are still undergoing their initial tests in court.”
The other nine most search practice areas, in order of highest search volume, are Tax Law, Corporate and M&A Law, Arbitration and Mediation, Administrative Law, Corporate Governance & Compliance Practice, Litigation, Intellectual Property Law, Real Estate Law and Labor and Employment Law.
Presenting Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch in Brazil™
For 2024, we are thrilled to launch the first edition of Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch in Brazil. This year’s awards honor 211 lawyers at 36 law firms and across 16 practice areas. Honorees practice at six metropolitan areas across Brazil. We received more than 680 total nominations this year.
Among the 16 practice areas, the ten with the most recognized lawyers are Litigation, Corporate and Mergers and Acquisitions Law, Tax Law, Labor and Employment Law, Arbitration and Mediation Law, Intellectual Property Law, Capital Markets Law, Environmental Law, Banking and Finance Law and Competition / Antitrust Law.
“Law Firm of the Year” Awards
“Law Firm of the Year” awards recognize a single top firm for its work in a specific legal practice area nationwide. Awards are determined based on a handful of factors including lawyer feedback, the number of lawyers included in Best Lawyers for that firm and practice area, the number of office locations a firm has, historical analysis of the firm’s “Lawyer of the Year” awards, materials submitted by firms, and the firm’s overall scope and areas of expertise.
The 2024 “Law Firm of the Year” recipients in Brazil are:
Alexandre Wunderlich Advogados
Corporate Criminal Law
BMA - Barbosa Müssnich Aragão
Insolvency and Reorganization Law
Dannemann Siemsen Advogados
Intellectual Property Law
Duarte Garcia, Serra Netto e Terra Advogados
Real Estate Law
Lefosse Advogados
Capital Markets Law
Machado, Meyer, Sendacz e Opice Advogados
Corporate and M&A Law
Project Finance and Development Practice
Mallet Advogados Associados
Labor and Employment Law
Mariz de Oliveira e Siqueira Campos Advogados
Tax Law
Milaré Advogados
Environmental Law
Opice Blum e Bruno Advogados Associados
Technology Law
Pellon & Associados
Insurance Law
Pereira Neto Macedo Advogados
Competition / Antitrust Law
Pinheiro Neto Advogados
Banking and Finance Law
Sergio Bermudes Advogados
Arbitration and Mediation
Sundfeld Advogados
Administrative Law
TozziniFreire Advogados
Litigation
Veirano Advogados
Natural Resources Law
Showcasing Your Award
Best Lawyers offers several options to showcase awards through impactful marketing.
Please contact sales@bestlawyers.com to learn more about how you can highlight individual lawyer and firm awards through your website, social media channels, Best Lawyers Profile Suite packages and commemorative items.
Interested in seeing Best Lawyers honorees in Brazil? Use our Find a Lawyer in Brazil tool to search by location and specialty. You can also explore our Find a Lawyer page to search for lawyers in other countries and practice areas.
