David B. Wilkins, faculty director of the HLS Center on the Legal Profession, spoke with Ignacio Abella, head of research for Latin Lawyer, about changes in the Latin American legal market.
David B. Wilkins: You’ve been covering the Latin American legal market now for over two decades. What are the biggest changes you’ve seen in that time?
Ignacio Abella: The transformation in the Latin American market over the last 20 years is significant for a number of reasons. There are five key changes I want to highlight.
First, the transition in the leadership of the leading law firms. Most of the Latin American law firms historically were founder-led, but the majority of the top ones have moved to elected leadership structures. These transitions have also created opportunities to be more corporate in a sense, and also they have helped law firms in talent acquisition and retention.
Second, there has been an increase in the business development function within the law firm. When I started doing this work 20 years ago, very few law firms had close relationships with the media. Now almost all have a team, not just a person, handling marketing and communications.
Third, these law firms have faced globalization. There have been several waves of internationalization in the market. We first saw the arrival of the large global law firms, then came the Wall Street and Magic Circle law firms, then we saw local law firms integrating. Particularly in Central America, there has been a noticeable move to integrate across the Central American region in the last 15 to 20 years.
Fourth, the arrival of Spanish law firms. The top Spanish law firms first began opening offices in the first decade of the twenty-first century, some picking up the best talent, others merging with local law firms, and another one creating the first Iberian Latin American law firm. Now we’ve seen one particular law firm, Pérez-Llorca, just announce their second Latin American office as a merger with a top law firm in Colombia, Gómez-Pinzón. Their first office in Latin America is in Mexico and was likewise a merger with a top local firm, González Calvillo. This is unique as every other international player that has arrived in Latin America has either cherry-picked talent or merged with existing law firms lower on the rungs, but very few have gone to the top of the market.
There was a 10 percent drop in women partnership hires from 2023 (38 percent) to 2024 (28 percent).
Ignacio Abella, head of research, Latin Lawyer
Last, there have been massive changes around management and the adoption of technology—AI and so on. As we’re sitting now, all law firms recognize how critical this is, but they are still slow to adopt. They understand the urgency, and clients are demanding increased efficiency and obviously a decrease in prices and so on.
Wilkins: Diving further into some of the work you’ve been reporting on: in your last report on partnership hires, you talk about how 2024 saw a bit of a decline and a cooling off of the market, which you say is an adjustment to the kind of boom that came after the pandemic. But one of the striking things was the gender imbalance that you are seeing in the partnership hires. As we know, the rise of women in the profession has been one of the big trends globally, and it’s an interesting reversal here. Could you say a few words about what’s happening and why you think that may be true?
Abella: Obviously we report on figures provided to us by the law firms. This is by no means the full market view. However, it’s an interesting snapshot because these are the leading law firms in all of these countries reporting on how many women are being hired into partnership roles. This was quite a concern when we saw the results—there was a 10 percent drop in women partnership hires from 2023 (38 percent) to 2024 (28 percent). In one sense it was obviously in line with the overall decline in partnership hires, which is explained by the market adjusting itself post-pandemic. This is only amplified in the hire of women partners simply because there are fewer women in the overall profession.
This is by no means a justification, but the reality of the Latin American legal market is that it is still male dominated. While progress has been made, there are still certain perceptions and unconscious biases at play here. The glass ceiling is still dry there for Latin American female lawyers. We have seen a lot of progress across the spectrum of law firms. Interestingly enough, there have been numerous women-led law firms, particularly boutiques, founded across Latin America. That happens sometimes when there are certain talented women in law firms who see that they don’t have a hope of partnership, so they strike out on their own. That’s a loss for the law firm that could not retain those leading and talented women.
Law firms are trying to prepare for an increase in disputes, and they need the talent to help their clients through expected downturns.
Abella
I think law firms were surprised when they read our report. Firms should focus not just on hiring talented women—of hiring everyone who’s talented—but also on designing policies that can foster the retention and career progression of women and minorities. Policies regarding flexible working arrangements and parental leave or allocation of highly paid work across the firm, for example, can be very helpful. The law firms that have made more progress are also those with women on the executive board. One of the objectives of reporting these issues is trying to shine a light on the difficulties and challenges that are faced by women.
Wilkins: One of the things that you mentioned there, which intersects with another interesting feature of your reporting, is how different practices are either growing or not growing in the Latin American market. What are the practices that are going to be trending in the next year or so?
Abella: We wrapped up a report on hiring across the region per practice area for Q1 of 2025 , and I was interested to see two practice areas that were increasing their hires. One of them was disputes. That didn’t come as a surprise because the legal market is facing a lot of economic headwinds. Law firms are trying to prepare for an increase in disputes, and they need the talent to help their clients through expected downturns. In that sense, to see an increase of hires in dispute resolution—arbitration and litigation—is not a surprise.
The surprise is in real estate partner hires. I think it’s grown because of the interplay between real estate practice and other practices. Real estate supports a lot of other practices and works closely not just with transactions but also with mining, infrastructure, energy, which are practice areas that are growing across the region as well.
There were other practice areas where we expect growth, and we saw growth—energy, particularly renewables, infrastructure, mining, anything related to natural resources—because Latin America is in dire need of an infrastructure upgrade.
We’ve seen a slowdown across the board in certain practice areas, particularly in transactions. But we continue to expect growth in energy and infrastructure.
Wilkins: You’ve mentioned economic headwinds several times, and, of course, there are geopolitical tensions and the complex situation with the United States on the one hand and China on the other hand. How do you see those things impacting the market in Latin America, and what advice do you have for law firms trying to figure out how to navigate these complex headwinds?
Abella: I can say the same thing about Latin America every year—there’s always something happening, there’s always something interesting. This is the first time that the risk is coming from the north. But Latin American law firms are resilient because they are accustomed to facing or weathering periods of instability. They’ve seen political upheavals, economic crises, and natural disasters unfortunately.
For multinationals that are not in the region, or they’re trying to expand in the region, the first thing they need to understand is that Latin America as a single market is a construct—in each country they need to understand the specifics of that particular market.
Ignacio Abella
They are obviously hiring and training people and learning from clients about what keeps them awake at night. There are a lot of risks that law firms cannot influence. Trade policy is obviously decided elsewhere. However, they are prepared—or they have to become prepared—to advise clients on the changing trade policies and tariffs and so on, because multinational companies, which are the majority of investment in Latin America, need advice on compliance and tariffs and cross-border agreements.
The Venezuelan market, for example, has faced challenges over the last 30 years. I remember many years ago, lawyers had to tune in to the televised speeches of former President Chávez, because he would change economic policy live. Fast-forward 20 years, we all do that, but on Twitter or through social media and from the U.S. government. But, again, this is nothing new for Latin American law firms. The economic complexity is different and, as I said, is coming more from the north than from within Latin America. But it remains a fact that firms are extremely resilient. They are prepared, and they’re getting prepared to hire more lawyers in areas like disputes, restructuring, insolvency.
Wilkins: I want to end by asking you to speculate about where you think things are going. How should global companies thinking about entering Latin America understand the market right now?
Abella: For multinationals that are not in the region, or they’re trying to expand in the region, the first thing they need to understand is that Latin America as a single market is a construct—in each country they need to understand the specifics of that particular market. There are some similarities across the markets, but the legal landscape in each is quite different. Each country has its quirks. They need to understand the legal landscape: Who are the players, who are the leading law firms, and what’s the exposure of these law firms to other clients?
The majority of the leading law firms in Latin America have built a reputation by directly engaging with international investors and clients. That’s a good thing. However, there have been a lot of changes in the regulatory framework. Regulations keep changing, and some of them change every time there’s a change of government. You can’t trust that whatever you’re working on now is not going to change in four years. Finding the right legal adviser is key.
There are opportunities for both law firms and clients in Latin America, and some of them are pushed by changes up north. For instance, there are near-shoring opportunities in Mexico and even Panama and Colombia. Law firms should not just follow the needs and demands of the clients. They should try to anticipate them and see where they’re going or advise on how they can get there or where they should be going.
Where the market is going is very difficult to predict. I am going back to what I mentioned at the beginning about these Spanish law firms arriving in Colombia. We expect to see more of those. You see in the United States law firms in the mid-market merging. I didn’t see another A&O Shearman merger-type happening in Latin America. However, this one just showed me that I was wrong. That’s going to happen because there is a trend toward consolidation. We will see more mergers in Latin America, including likely with an international component. Indeed, expect to see international law firms doing something in Argentina.
The market is pretty exciting at the moment.
Ignacio Abella is the head of research for Latin Lawyer and LACCA.
David B. Wilkins is the Lester Kissel Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and faculty director of the Harvard Law School Center on the Legal Profession.
