- These appointments strengthen the areas of Real Estate, Restructuring & Finance, Litigation & Arbitration, M&A and Banking & Finance
- 67% of the new partners are women. The appointments of María Teresa Paillés and María Esther Rey are part of Pérez-Llorca’s ‘Women in Corporate’ programme
- 83% are part of the firm’s international offices, reinforcing its international presence and strategy
- The firm has also promoted José del Saz-Orozco and Félix Ponce-Nava to counsels
- In Brussels, Pablo Figueroa takes up the position of resident partner and Sonsoles Centeno returns to Madrid to continue developing the Public Law and European Union Law practices
Pérez-Llorca today announced the appointment of six partners, through both internal promotions and new arrivals. These appointments strengthen the Litigation and Arbitration practice in Spain; the Restructuring & Finance practice based in the UK; and the Real Estate, Corporate M&A and Banking & Finance practices in Mexico.
Four of the firm’s six new partners are women, in line with the Pérez-Llorca Equality Plan, which includes measures to promote and develop women’s careers in order to advance equal opportunities between men and women and increase the number of female partners at the firm.
Five of these six partners are part of the firm’s international offices, and are in addition to the recently announced appointment of Manuel de Abreu Castelo Branco in Lisbon, in a further demonstration of Pérez-Llorca’s firm commitment to international development.
Bringing in new talent
María Teresa Paillés and María Esther Rey join Pérez-Llorca’s Mexico team as partners. Their appointments are part of Pérez-Llorca’s ‘Women in Corporate’ programme, through which the firm promotes equality between men and women and fosters female talent in the Corporate field.
María Teresa Paillés joins Pérez-Llorca’s Mexican practice with more than 35 years of experience in both Mexico and New York. She specialises in real estate transactions and investments in all sectors of industry, mergers and acquisitions, financing transactions, as well as general corporate law, having advised private as well as listed companies and public entities. She is the president of the board of directors and a founding partner of Abogadas MX, an NGO that promotes the professional development of women lawyers.
María Esther Rey joins Pérez-Llorca’s Mexico City office after more than 25 years of experience advising various national and multinational companies on their operational, transactional and real estate activities both in Mexico and abroad. She has been involved in M&A transactions, loan negotiations, project finance and the structuring of guarantees mainly for the real estate industry. She has extensive experience in investment, guarantee, administration and business trusts.
Internal promotions
As part of Pérez-Llorca’s commitment to internal talent, four professionals have been promoted to partners, two women and two men, from the London, Madrid and Mexico City offices. Two lawyers have also become counsels in Madrid and Mexico City.
Isabel Villa has been promoted from counsel to partner. She joined the Madrid office in 2022 as a counsel in the Banking & Finance practice, and in March 2024 she joined the firm’s London team.
Silvia de Paz joins the team of partners at Pérez-Llorca, where she has spent most of her professional career in the Litigation and Arbitration area of the Madrid office.
Jacinto Ávalos Capín has been promoted to partner in the firm’s Mexico City office. He is an expert in Corporate M&A, Banking & Finance and Debt & Capital Markets.
Jerónimo Ramos has been promoted to partner in the firm’s Mexico City office. He specialises in infrastructure and energy project finance, structured finance, M&A and real estate transactions.
In addition, the firm has promoted José del Saz-Orozco and Félix Ponce-Nava, lawyers from Spain and Mexico respectively, to counsels. José del Saz-Orozco has spent his entire career at the firm in the area of Land Planning and Environment, while Félix Ponce-Nava is an expert in foreign trade and customs, regulatory consultancy and strategic legal protection.
Brussels Office
After joining Pérez-Llorca in 2021 as a partner and leading the opening of the Pérez-Llorca Brussels office in 2022, Sonsoles Centeno, a state advocate on leave of absence and an expert in Public Law and European Union Law, is returning to the Madrid office where she will continue to advise her clients on these matters.
Pablo Figueroa, who has been a partner in Pérez-Llorca’s Competition practice since 2021, will be the new resident partner of the firm’s Brussels office. Figueroa is an expert in competition law, European law and foreign direct investment control (‘FDI’) regulations. He holds a Master’s degree from the College of Europe (Bruges) and from Cornell Law School, and is a visiting lecturer at Queen Mary University (London).
