Celebrating its first decade in the market in 2023, Souto Correa Advogados has developed a sophisticated offering comprising some of the country’s finest legal practitioners in its relatively short lifespan. Chief among the firm’s full-service offering is a renowned contingent of litigators and corporate lawyers. Professionals here take a multidisciplinary approach to their work. This is a key facet to the outfit’s ability to retain and attract an impressive roster of clients.
The outfit boasts an active transactional practice area, which manages high-value and complex mergers and acquisitions, shareholder transactions, and joint ventures in the real estate, energy and healthcare industries. Increased work in the tech and banking sectors is propelling the firm’s activity in innovative and lucrative directions. Meanwhile, Souto Correa won Latin Lawyer’s 2023 Deal of the Year Award in the regulatory category, for its role advising Brazilian sanitation company Aegea during its privatisation process.
The group’s Asia desk ensures that lawyers are poised to take on the growing volume of Chinese investment in Brazil and Latin America. Guilherme Rizzo Amaral, who serves as managing partner, provides enviable insight into such transactions. The firm plans to soon add an Italian desk to strengthen its presence among European clients. The tax and labour departments are also home to brilliant legal minds.
Souto Correa is setting its sights on consolidating and expanding, having recorded a raft of new clients from the corporate sector. To achieve this, the firm increased its headcount by 50% during the same period, with a particular focus on M&A. The practice is dedicated to its full-service proposition and continues to make strategic investments across to board, such as hiring an in-house lawyer from Alexion Pharmaceuticals to join the senior ranks in its life sciences and healthcare practice. It has also recently added two new departments, in response to growing demand in fintech and cryptoassets, and climate solutions work.
Lateral hires and fostering homegrown talent are both integral to the group’s expansion plans, with flexible working hours providing a key draw for both young talent and experienced practitioners seeking freedom from the rigidity of other firms. Lawyers here also benefit from a hybrid working scheme or the possibility of working from home full-time.
Inclusion also plays a key role in Souto Correa’s approach to management, fostering numerous committees to ensure that the firm’s culture actively elevates diverse members of its staff to senior roles. The outfit also hopes to attract talent from less privileged backgrounds by dropping an English language requirement across numerous roles. These work-life balance initiatives draw positive reviews in an internal survey, with 92% of staff confirming that they feel heard and respected in the workplace.
Clients offer praise across the firm’s varied offering, complimenting a business-centred approach, assertiveness, technical skills and strategic vision.
Alliances & networks
Souto Correa is a member of legal networks Global Restructuring and Insolvency Professionals and the Law Firm Alliance.
Offices
The firm counts offices in Brasília, Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre and São Paulo, the latter of which is now its largest by headcount.