São Paulo-based Mattos Muriel Kestener Advogados, a firm founded in 2005 by Ubiratan Mattos, Marcelo A. Muriel, and Beatriz Kestener, is unwinding, with each of the founding partners transitioning to a role in one of three new firms. This decision was made two weeks ago, though according to Kestener, the implementation will take a few months.
“We have basically established three different very specific practices,” explained Muriel. Kestener agreed, saying, “At the end of this period together, we’ve grown and we understood that if we are separated, we can take advantage of specific fields.”
Kestener’s new firm, Kestener Granja Vieira Advogados, will have around 30 lawyers and four partners. Rubens Granja, Fabio Alonso Vieira, and Eduardo Soto Pires, all partners at MMK Advogados, will join the new firm. Kestener’s practice areas include litigation, M&A, regulatory and labor, and she also has expertise in the life sciences. Her new firm will focus on, but will not limit itself to, the health sector.
Muriel Medici Franco Advogados will be the name of Muriel’s new firm. Muriel, along with Nancy Gombossy de Melo Franco and Fernando Médici Junior (both partners at MMK Advogados), will act as founding partners of the firm, which will focus on litigation and arbitration with a special focus on agribusiness. The firm will have offices in São Paulo as well as Ribeirão Preto.
Mattos is joining with Fernando Engelberg Moraes, founder of Engelberg Moraes Advogados, and Carla Junqueira, a former partner of Barretto Ferreira & Brancher, to form Mattos Engelberg Advogados. The new firm will be based in São Paulo and will have 12 partners. Its practice areas will include capital markets, banking, civil litigation, antitrust, regulatory, corporate and M&A, labor, and taxation, and the firm will be active in the agribusiness, port and maritime, and life sciences sectors.
According to Kestener, the partners’ clients do not overlap, so disputes over clients are not expected.