Nova sócia do Lobo & de Rizzo é destaque na Latin Lawyer

Corporate and infrastructure lawyer Tavares, 42, joined Lobo & de Rizzo’s Rio de Janeiro office on 15 March with two associates. Tavares was a key component of Machado Meyer’s corporate offering in Rio. She spent five years at Machado Meyer, before which she was a partner at Demarest Advogados. Tavares says Lobo & de Rizzo’s internal structure, which encourages partners to work together to make sure clients have the right deal team for each transaction, helped her make her decision, as well as the firm’s compensation structure. “I mostly work on cross-border deals and often our clients need the efficient, seamless and collegial involvement of professionals from multiple practice areas, regardless of who has the primary relationship with the client,” she explains. “My goal is to make sure that there is an intensive collaboration with our clients and amongst ourselves, to achieve a full comprehension of the client’s respective industry.” She also cites her new firm’s competitive billing rates as a factor in her decision, saying they enable the firm to participate in large, middle market and smaller transactions. As well as general corporate work, Tavares is visible in the private equity sector. In 2015 she advised Canadian pension fund PSP when it teamed up with private equity fund Vinci Partners to buy stakes in several Brazilian shopping malls, after working with PSP in 2014 for its acquisition of real estate in downtown Rio de Janeiro. She also has experience in the energy sector, advising US energy compression service provider Axip on the sale of Latin American assets to Canadian counterpart Enerflex. Lobo & de Rizzo managing partner Rodrigo Millar de Castro Guerra says his firm wants to make further lateral hires in non-transactional areas. “Our radar will be on at all times to detect great opportunities in tax and litigation; that being said we have room to grow across the board, and this is particularly true in antitrust and labour,” says Guerra. Last year the firm targeted energy, with the hire of Marilda Rosado de Sá Ribeiro as counsel. Guerra describes Tavares as an outstanding lawyer: “we believe her services will be in high demand and we expect that she will be key in further developing our corporate and infrastructure practice.” Machado Meyer – one of Brazil’s largest law firms and with a deep bench of both transactional and non-transactional talent – introduced a new modified lockstep model in 2015, in a bid to promote cross-selling within the firm. The firm witnessed some high-profile departures last year, including former corporate partners José Samurai Saiani, who set up his own firm, and Giovanni Biscardi, who moved to US firm Carlton Fields Jorden Burt LLP. “Machado Meyer is grateful to the nearly six years of partnership with Daniella Tavares and we wish her much success in her new challenges,” says Machado Meyer managing partner Celso Costa. José Prado, a member of Machado Meyer’s executive council, adds that the firm expects to name new partners soon.