DAC Beachcroft has opened an office in Miami, led by a former AIG lawyer, as it looks to strengthen its Latin American offering by connecting local insurance clients to the rest of its network.
In common with the firm’s New York office, the Miami outpost will not undertake legal work locally in Florida. Led by former AIG associate general counsel Sascha Stullenberg, DAC Beachcroft said the new office will instead acting as a liaison between the firm’s international network in Chile, Mexico and Colombia, to insurance and reinsurance clients operating in Miami.
The firm’s head of insurance, David Pollitt, said ‘The firm maintains its own offices in Mexico, Chile and Colombia as well as a strong and deepening relationship in Brazil but the final piece of the jigsaw has been Miami, a rapidly growing market through which an increasing amount of Latin American insurance and reinsurance business flows’.
The move means the firm has a presence in two leading insurance and reinsurance centres in Latin America, São Paulo and Miami, DAC Beachcroft’s Latin American regional head Anthony Menzies said. It also builds on the merger of its Brazilian associate office, JBO Advocacia with full service firm Demarest Advogados earlier this month. JBO Advocacia partner Marcia Cicarelli Barbosa de Oliveira became head of insurance of the newly merged entity.
DAC Beachcroft has been building its presence in Latin America for some years and became the first UK firm to open in Chile in 2013 with the acquisition of two local outfits.
victoria.young@legalease.co.uk