PLMJ Hires Joaquim Shearman de Macedo as Co-Head of its Dispute Resolution Practice
June, 2020 - Portugal
Joaquim Shearman de Macedo is a new partner and co-head of PLMJ’s dispute resolution practice.
Ten years after leaving PLMJ, where he started his career, Shearman de Macedo has re-joined the firm in the new cycle that began at the end of 2018. He comes in as co-head of the team together with Rita Samoreno Gomes and Pedro Metello de Nápoles.
For Bruno Ferreira, PLMJ's co-managing partner, “this strengthening of the firm's leadership in the dispute resolution practice is a strategic step towards realising our vision for the firm: to be able to serve our clients for the next 20 years, to continue to grow in Portugal and to consolidate our international position. This plan is based on a well thought out and well prepared reform that brings together the best talent and refocuses what we do on the areas and matters where we want to be. As a result, we are very happy to have Joaquim with us, as he embodies these two dimensions in a unique way in the Portuguese legal profession”.
For Joaquim Shearman de Macedo, “Joining PLMJ again is more than a homecoming. It is a case of back to the future, in a firm which, once again, in this new cycle, is demonstrating its permanent capacity for innovation and reinvention. I embrace this this step with great enthusiasm and ambition. To co-lead a team of renowned lawyers with enormous talent and to contribute to consolidating a firm of this size and relevance in the area of dispute resolution with a focus on business advocacy, is a very exciting project”.
In addition to judicial litigation, PLMJ's dispute resolution practice also includes arbitration and criminal law. It will have three co-heads and a senior partner. In addition to Joaquim Shearman de Macedo, the area will be led jointly by partners Pedro Metello de Nápoles, until now head of PLMJ Arbitration, and Rita Samoreno Gomes who, since 2016, has headed PLMJ's banking and financial litigation team. Nuno Líbano Monteiro was head of dispute resolution up to this point, but he is now leaving that role to take on the position of senior partner in the dispute resolution practice. Today, the area has a total of more than 50 lawyers including 12 partners.
Joaquim Shearman de Macedo has a career spanning more than 20 years in the areas of civil and commercial litigation and in domestic and international arbitration. He has been vice president of the Executive Committee of the Mediation and Arbitration Centre Concórdia since 2017 and president of the Professional Ethics Committee of the Portuguese Arbitration Association since 2019.
