Understanding the role of the lawyer is essential for full exercise of the profession, although a broad view of its extent and relevance is still rare in Brazil.<\/p>\n
Speaking of business law in Brazil is a pleasant task and should start with a dose of history.<\/p>\n
During the Empire period (from independence from Portugal in 1822 to the Proclamation of the Republic in 1889), Brazil produced many brilliant lawyers and jurists, although there was no bar association (founded only in 1930). It was the era of the law degree holders, attentive to the needs of a Brazil undergoing intense transformation, in which positivist and abolitionist ideas collided rancorously with the traditional tenets of the slaveholding elite.<\/p>\n
The leading lawyers of this time and in the first decades of the Republic were Teixeira de Freitas, Cl\u00f3vis Bevilaqua, Ruy Barbosa, J. X. Carvalho de Mendon\u00e7a, Rodrigo Octavio and Eduardo Esp\u00ednola, all of whom have left a rich legacy of writings that are still quoted today in legal opinions and court decisions.<\/p>\n
For decades, the activities of good business lawyers were constrained by the country\u2019s timid economic development. The remarkable contributions of the likes of Waldemar Ferreira, Spencer Vampr\u00e9 and Miranda Valverde would certainly have been greater had our economy been anywhere near developed countries\u2019 economies.<\/p>\n
Therefore, it is no exaggeration to say that the profile of the business lawyer was forged only recently in Brazil, basically starting in the 1990s, a period of economic opening and development of a flow of private business deals that inundated the domestic market, spurred by the privatization program and strong influx of foreign capital.<\/p>\n
Curiously to modern observers, lawyers before that time were stereotyped as forensic professionals: legal practitioners were identified with litigation conducted in the courts, and lawyers were in general isolated in their legal world, dialoguing with each other or exchanging information with judges by means of their own \u201clegalese\u201d dialect.<\/p>\n
The exceptions were the \u201cbusiness consultants\u201d, to use an expression coined in the 1970s by Rubens Requi\u00e3o. All the same, as professionals lurking in the shadows of companies\u2019 daily affairs, these \u201cconsultants\u201d performed a merely accessory function.<\/p>\n
To give an idea of these times, it is worth mentioning a recollection by Luiz Fux, now a Brazilian Supreme Court Justice, on his early experience as an in-house lawyer for Shell, in a class given at Rio de Janeiro State University in 1997. He said that when the lawyers arrived to give their opinion on a particular contract or deal, the managers immediately commented: \u201cHere come the naysayers!\u201d<\/p>\n
It was the norm for lawyers to be inculcated with a culture of absolute aversion to risk. Seeking to protect all and everyone, lawyers focused mainly on the drawbacks of any contractual transaction, often to the point of pulling the rug from under a good business opportunity.<\/p>\n
However, risk is the essence of any company, and indeed of life itself. How can its existence be denied?<\/p>\n
In the past two decades, Brazil\u2019s corporate lawyers have had to broaden their horizons. It is no longer enough to know the system of rules and to apply legal concepts wisely.<\/p>\n
Lawyers need to enter the playing filed as catalysts of business deals and use their knowledge to aggregate value to their clients, whether by providing efficient legal solutions or by correctly identifying the legal risks and then finding ways to neutralize (or minimize) the potential adverse effects.<\/p>\n
For this purpose, it is of the utmost importance to have a good grasp of other related disciplines to the law, such as business administration, economics, finance and negotiating techniques.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A proposta de Moreira Menezes, Martins, Advogados \u00e9 estar entre os l\u00edderes da advocacia de neg\u00f3cios no Brasil. Ter a consci\u00eancia do papel do advogado \u00e9 a nossa premissa.<\/p>\n
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A compreens\u00e3o do papel do advogado \u00e9 essencial para o pleno exerc\u00edcio da atividade, embora poucos no Brasil tenham consci\u00eancia de sua extens\u00e3o e relev\u00e2ncia. Falar da advocacia empresarial no Brasil contempor\u00e2neo \u00e9 uma tarefa apaixonante! A ponto de sugerir alguma dose de hist\u00f3ria. Desde o Imp\u00e9rio, surgiram brilhantes advogados e juristas brasileiros, sem que […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-artigos"],"yoast_head":"\n