In 2005, García & Bodán launched in El Salvador, the second country targeted by the Nicaraguan firm as part of its ambitious expansion plan in Central America. The multi-disciplinary firm’s compact team in El Salvador focuses primarily on transactional work, with lawyers taking on cross-border M&A mandates, as well as instructions from banking clients.
Notwithstanding its transactional prowess, García & Bodán boasts demonstrable strength across its energy, arbitration, real estate and tourism and intellectual property practices. Lawyers at the firm have received praise from clients for their availability, efficiency and prompt responses.
Having now established a presence in five countries across Central America, the firm is keen to consolidate its current offering. To that end, a regional executive committee oversees key strategic decisions across the board along with the managing partners from each office. Julio César Vargas Solano is the managing partner in El Salvador.
In recent years, along with significant investment in technology, the firm has finetuned a regional strategy which includes more transparent compensation systems and career tracks. The rolling out of a new documentation system is currently underway, with the aim of using one platform across all the firm’s offices and thereby ensuring a more efficient process.
Another core element of the firm’s philosophy across the region is retaining and nurturing its home-grown talent, which it seeks to achieve by offering its younger lawyers further training, while supporting them in the pursuit of an LLM degree if desired.
Offices
The firm operates locally out of San Salvador and has a presence across five Central American countries following its opening of an office in the Costa Rican capital San José in 2019. In Nicaragua, the firm has three offices, while it has two in Honduras and another in Guatemala.