General (In-House) Counsels in Brazil: Career, Professional Profile and a New Role

Abstract

This paper discusses who the legal directors are in private companies in Brazil, emphasizing their profile, career, and performance, focusing on the period of 2008-2013, investigating changes which have occurred to legal departments in those companies, and to legal directors’ careers. Our argument is that since the expansion of legal departments in Brazil in the 1990s, with expanding privatizing of companies and further opening of the Brazilian market to foreign capital, the profiles and careers of legal directors have undergone several transformations, culminating in more value and prestige being given to those professionals inside companies. This paper explores these transformations and the a series of implications generated for the corporate legal market in the country, ranging from changing the criteria for hiring professionals, to creating new demands for more sophisticated legal services.

Keywords: legal directors; legal departments; General Counsel; Brazil; globalization