With Portugal’s recession expected to continue for at least another two years, the country’s law firms have no option but to go abroad. LB assesses whether their international strategies are paying dividends
As any schoolboy will tell you, Portugal has a proud tradition as one of Europe’s foremost explorers. The era of Henry the Navigator and Vasco da Gama was a golden age of European discovery, in which a tiny nation spread its tentacles throughout the world and, for a period, became one of its greatest powers. Nearly 600 years later, Portugal’s lawyers are continuing in the same vein. Their adventures might be much more prosaic, but the impetus that drives them – namely the limitations of their domestic market – is the same.Global domination is by no means on the cards, but the international networks that some Portuguese firms boast, such as Miranda Correia Amendoeira & Associados (Miranda Law Firm), are far greater than many of their rivals in the UK and elsewhere. The pattern of expansion follows the path of their famous forebears into former colonies and Portuguese-speaking nations, of which Angola, Brazil and Mozambique are the most important. Offices in Macau and China are also springing up to benefit from Chinese investment into Africa, while increased trade with EU countries such as Poland and Romania has led to offices in Eastern Europe as well. For those that are already well positioned, with clients coming from or entering these markets, the severe downturn that Portugal is suffering has had a much more reduced impact on their finances.
