Consortium Legal (Costa Rica) is home to the regional firm’s largest team. This was further bolstered in late 2021 with the opening of a new office in Guanacaste. This new outpost is set to capitalise on the growing opportunities in real estate acquisitions and project developments in this coastal area.
Consortium Legal (Costa Rica) is widely recognised as one of the busiest law firms in the Central American banking sector. It continues to perform well despite some years of sluggish economic growth in the country. The firm has worked on several traditional banking deals, as well as in the fintech space. Meanwhile, the team’s capital market prowess is frequently demonstrated in pioneering deals. It recently guided the underwriters on Costa Rica’s first sustainability-linked bond issuance, worth $300 million, issued by state-owned electricity company Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE).
Consortium Legal’s strength across non-transactional practices is also evident. The firm reports a healthy increase of mandates for the litigation and arbitration departments, as well as in the labour law and compliance areas. The impressive tax department remains busy since the country’s most recent tax reform in 2019. Clients seeking corporate advice can also confidently turn here, with the firm playing a regular part in cross-border deals.
Meanwhile, Consortium Legal continues to invest in technology and the training of its talent. Resources are poured into the further education of its lawyers, not just to deepen their legal knowledge but also to enhance specific industry expertise. The firm encourages associates to take in-house secondments to better understand the specific needs and requirements of clients. The training programme available at the firm includes the business development and economics components of the services that clients require.
More recently, Consortium Legal has fine-tuned the training programmes to foster soft skills among its lawyers, including cultivating interpersonal relationships with clients. This move is indicative of the firm’s wider philosophy to always place client satisfaction at the centre.
Meanwhile, finance clients can now follow and review their legal matters using a new software tool that is now in place. Consortium Legal provides webinars to inform companies of the latest developments, as well as to train young talent, alongside existing podcasts and YouTube channels dedicated to sharing the latest updates in the legal world.
Consortium Legal, one of the original, leading Central American firms, is constantly seeking to further integrate its offices. To this end, a regional managing director, based in San José, works hard to improve corporate governance and deal coordination, as well as on strengthening the commercial and cultural links of its various offices, emphasising a sense of unity.
Following the establishment in 2020 of a five-year strategy, including the implementation of a new career plan to give more transparency and certainty to junior lawyers as well as the client-centric plan, Consortium Legal reports fruitful results. A firmwide alumni programme was also put in place to stay in contact with former colleagues.
Consortium Legal is among the most popular firm among the region’s largest companies, according to research on ‘Who Represents Latin America’s Biggest Companies’, conducted by the Latin American Corporate Counsel Association (LACCA), which is affiliated to Latin Lawyer. According to this data, Consortium Legal represents 14 of 100 of the biggest companies in Latin America, positioning the firm among the top three most popular firms in Central America among these clients.
Management
Regional managing director Valeria Di Palma coordinates the offices and works on office integration between the five jurisdictions. She reports to the board and the executive committee, which is represented by partners from each of the countries where the firm has offices. Rolando Laclé Castro, Rolando Laclé Zúñiga, Mario Quesada Bianchini, David Arturo Campos, Diego Salto and Rafael Luna share the local management responsibilities in Costa Rica. Álvaro Castellanos in Guatemala is the firm’s regional president.
Offices
Consortium Legal is a regional firm that has six offices spread across Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. In Costa Rica, the firm is run from the capital San José, and it opened an outpost in Guanacaste in December 2021.
Alliances and networks
The firm is a member of global law network World Services Group and World Compliance Association.