LAW.COM | Spain’s ‘Top 3’ Latin American Strategies Reveal a Blueprint for Big Law
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Lexington has been quoted by Law.com in coverage examining how Spain’s leading law firms are approaching Latin America and what their different strategies may reveal about the future of international growth for Big Law.
Latin America has become a high-stakes testing ground for Spain’s top law firms, where expansion models are being stress-tested in a market known for brutal competition and volatile politics.
Spain’s ‘Big Three’—Garrigues, Uría Menéndez and Cuatrecasas—are all chasing growth in Latin America, but their sharply diverging strategies are exposing very different ideas of what it may take to win in one of the world’s most competitive legal markets.
A month after Chile’s business-friendly President José Antonio Kast was sworn into office this year, Garrigues made its latest move, announcing plans to integrate 50-lawyer rival Barros, Silva, Varela & Vigil to create a 130-lawyer, full-service firm.
"We want to gain scale, not as a goal in itself, but because it is necessary to be involved in the most relevant transactions and to provide truly multidisciplinary services,” Fernando Vives, executive chairman of Garrigues, said. “Plus, we do not aim to be just a corporate law firm; we want to have strong capabilities across all areas of business law."
Expansion makes economic sense as the Spanish market is saturated and the Pacific Alliance countries are traditionally considered safe for foreign investment. That doesn’t mean there aren’t challenges, though.
“Latin America is not a transparent market,” said Marc Gericó of Portugal- and Miami based Gericó Associates, particularly when it comes to integrations with local firms. “It’s not easy to find reliable information about profitability.”
The legal market also operates in a climate of political and regulatory volatility, local bar
restrictions on foreign firm ownership, and intensifying competition from Iberian rivals and well- capitalized local firms, according to Mari Cruz Taboada, a partner at Madrid’s Lexington
Consultants.
International competition is also cutthroat. Big Law headliners DLA Piper, Baker McKenzie,
Dentons Larrain Rencoret and CMS Carey & Allende are already based in the Chilean capital of
Santiago, for example.
