Iberian Lawyer contacted some of the most active Portuguese legal practitioners in this space, to hear and dissect their views and ask: Is Portugal ready for the legalised recreational use of cannabis? Neary four years have passed since the approval of the Portuguese medical cannabis Law no. 33/2018, of 18 July. A lot has happened since then. There are now a significant number of businesses that have been awarded licences by Infarmed, the national authority for medical and health products. As with any new market with such big potential, it takes time for the serious players to emerge. One of ..read more

The political and legal landscapes in Portugal are arguably more synonymous with each other than meets the eye. In this article, Iberian Lawyer discovers why throughout its history, so many Portuguese lawyers end up in politics and whether lawyers really do make good politicians "Lawyers are natural politicians." These were famous words once uttered by the American lawyer Clarence Seward Darrow. He became infamous in the early 20th century for his involvement in the Leopold and Loeb murder trial, which was the inspiration for “Rope”, a 1948 psychological thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock ..read more

The world of Private Equity is often percieved as a club. You are either in or out. Iberian Lawyer had the pleasure of interviewing one of the few Portuguese expats currently residing in London, with a senior role in this space. Ricardo Caupers is a managing director at CPP Investments, a Canadian Crown corporation established to oversee and invest the funds contributed to and held by the Canada Pension Plan, with 519.6 billion CAD of assets under management. Caupers shares with us his career to date, which has taken him from Lisbon to New York and London, how the Private Equity market has ch ..read more

Alfonso Merlos, a well-known expert in Legal Communication, talks to Iberian Lawyer about "Justice and Communication" and his current professional projects   At this point in history, saying that communication can be corrupted or manipulated is a truism. As an expert in communication and the legal sector, do you think that this manipulation or conditioning can affect important judicial processes? If so, would this be related to what Javier Cremades, a lawyer friend of yours, calls the distortion of the Rule of Law? In this regard, do you have any current examples of what we are talking ..read more

Less than a month before the World Congress of Law, which this year celebrates its 27th edition in Barranquilla (Colombia), on 2 and 3 December, Iberian Lawyer talks with Javier Cremades, president of the World Jurist Association and the World Law Foundation, the organisations behind this global initiative, to find out his opinion on some aspects of communication that are directly or indirectly related to the work of Justice and the practice of Law. The harmful power of fake news, or public speaking as the main element of the Legal practice, are some of these topics.   The media contri ..read more

Iberian Lawyer presents, in alphabetical order, a selection of the top 60 lawyers from some of the most relevant practice areas in Spain and Portugal. In order to make this selection, we conducted an analysis of the leading lawyers working in private practice in Spain and Portugal, taking into account their positioning in their practice, both at the national and international level, as well as their active participation and leadership in relevant deals and matters. Likewise, in some cases, the special reputation of the lawyers as extraordinary dealmakers reported by market intelligence source ..read more

October's Young & Unstoppable is, since July 2020, vice-president of the Barcelona Young Lawyers Group (GAJ) and, last summer, she was appointed Executive officer of the European Association of Young Lawyers. We are talking about Carmen del Castillo Vericat, an in-house lawyer at Caixa Capital Risc (CCR) responsible for investments in startups. She confesses to being a "book devourer", practices yoga and loves to cook, especially for her friends. As it could not be otherwise, Carmen is a staunch advocate of associationism and companionship -something she learned from her father- whose exa ..read more

We spoke to Miguel Sánchez Monjo, a partner in the Cuatrecasas Financial Services and Investment Funds area, to learn more about cryptocurrencies and their possibilities as a type of investment. Miguel, a great connoisseur of the subject, offers us a broad view of the matter, which, nevertheless, highlights key aspects both for the effective development of the sector in our country and for potential consumers. He also reminds us of the importance of its original purpose as a payment method, which the new Visa and Paypal projects have already taken on and which, together with others, will cont ..read more

Escarlata Gutiérrez started tweeting in 2017 with the aim of publicising the unknown work that public prosecutors do. She now has around 39,000 followers on this network and has expanded her social media site to other networks such as Instagram and Youtube, also contributing to the dissemination of legal content in Facebook groups such as El Actualizador. Iberian Lawyer wanted to talk to her.   Known as "The Influencer public prosecutor", what does someone do on social media? Seriously, why did you take to Twitter? It is a pleasure for me to be known for the work I have been doing for ..read more

"Fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening" (Coco Chanel) Although Coco Chanel's original quote was somewhat longer, at Iberian Lawyer we wanted to highlight this part as we believe that everything that shapes us, including our clothes, communicates not only how we present ourselves to the world but also our ideals and our way of understanding and facing the present. Based on this hypothesis, we wanted to know how the Legal sector is dealing with the change of paradigm that the pandemic has brought about; principles and values that now take on value in the face of -perh ..read more