From humble beginnings as a corporate tax firm, Sánchez Devannyhas grown into a highly reputed full-service offering. The firm has a strong people focus, and each partner is given a chance to have their voice heard throughout the firm. Meanwhile, regular management elections to ensure that no partner overstays their time in the driver’s seat. Having a clear, democratic set of values has steered this firm in recent times and proves a particularly successful formula during times of crises – global pandemics included. The firm has a client-centred approach, and leadership from its Mexico City, Monterrey and Querétaro offices ensure that important companies that use the firm’s services are provided with top-notch legal advice. An efficient management strategy ensures that the outfit can pivot too when domestic politics cause market disruption, such as the recent forays into energy reform made by Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO). The firm has a history of appointing former in-house counsel, which the firm saysensures its partners are more business-minded and accustomed to managing legal finances.
Corporate and M&A is Sánchez Devanny’s most sizeable practice, with eight partners in total. The firm’s multidisciplinary approach means that corporate advisers can often be spotted working alongside trade, labour and tax teams at the firm. Sánchez Devanny’s anti-corruption and compliance department was one of the first departments of that sort in Mexico. It now has a very well-established reputation at the firm. The outfit prides itself on its tax expertise, an area it has spent years consolidating alongside the intellectual property, trade and energy areas. Regulatory work has also been on the up of late, due to complexities born from AMLO’s attempts to reform the country’s energy system, which fell through in 2022.
Lawyers have special focuses within certain industry groups, of which the automotive sector has long-been the largest. Recently, there has been an uptick of activity in the pharmaceutical industry, particularly in IP cases due to government-led changes in patent protection of some medicines. This has formulated some complex cases for the group. Meanwhile, the fintech, life sciences and retail industries offer steady streams of work. The firm’s client-focused approach means that the firm follows where demand is highest. A specialised practice group for assisting family businesses with tax and other legal issues is well-integrated into the firm and favoured by clients. Meanwhile, the firm stands out for having carved out areas dedicated to serving its Canadian, German and Japanese clients. Its Japanese desk has grown a lot recently.
Sánchez Devannyhas a successful trajectory in advising Latin America’s most prominent companies. A recent study, ‘Who represents Latin America’s biggest companies?’, published by Latin Lawyer affiliate the Latin American Corporate Counsel Association (LACCA), found that the Mexican firm was the third most popular among the region’s leading companies. Sánchez Devanny advised 14 of the 100 biggest companies in the region in 2021 according to the research. These clients include Spain’s Telefónica, Chile’s CMPC and Mexico’s Arca Continental. The firm’s core clients also come from the real estate, pharmaceuticals, automotive, retail and energy sectors.
The firm’s work receives praise from a diversemixture of clients, with recent feedback from a UK-based international company praising the level of complexity in the legal guidance offered by the outfit.
Sánchez Devanny pays careful attention to its internal structure and is proud of the gender parity among its lawyers’ compensation – across all ranks. This has broadened out to a more umbrella-form diversity and inclusion culture within the firm. One of the initiatives it has brought in under that policy is statuary paternal leave, something that is not particularly common among Mexican legal employers. The firm’s leadership is consistently seeks strategies to grow and keep female talent in the partnership, while recently Sanchez Devanny partnered with local organisation AbogadosMX on an initiative set to boost womens’ rights at Mexican law firms. The firm sets aside a portion of its budget for the professional development of its female attorneys too. The appointment of Turenna Ramírez Ortiz as managing partner in Mexico City, the first woman on the management committee, is proof in the pudding that the firm is dedicated to boosting gender diversity. Ramírez is also involved in the AbogadosMX initiative.
Headcount at the firm has ebbed and flowed of late. The firm added Elite talent when it recruited a Ritch Mueller y Nicolau, SC partner to its banking and finance practice, where it has designs to grow, although that hire came not long after losing a long-term partner to Elite outfit Basham, Ringe y Correa. Sánchez Devanny has no problem attracting young talent to its well-structured career development programme, which evaluates lawyers based on their leadership skills, financial gains, ethics, technical abilities and emotional intelligence in an objective way.
Offices
Sánchez Devanny’s lawyers split their time between offices in Mexico City, Monterrey and Querétaro.