Paula Gomes Freire, Managing Partner, features in the Who’s Who in Business Law in Portugal supplement, published by Jornal Económico, with a reflection on the main challenges facing the legal profession, the growing relevance of international business and the strategic areas of focus for the sector. According to the Managing Partner of VdA, “the legal profession is undergoing profound transformation and is facing very demanding challenges of a global nature”, in a context marked by deep structural changes in the legal market.
Among the key challenges, Paula Gomes Freire highlights “the almost radical transformation of the regulatory framework, which is opening an increasing share of the legal services market to new players of different kinds”, as well as “the reconfiguration of the industry’s paradigms (…) driven by the emergence of AI and its expected widespread use in the short to medium term”. She also underlines that “the main stakeholders – Clients and Talent – are themselves undergoing profound change and will force the legal profession to reinvent itself”, adding that although it will continue to be “a people-driven industry in which the human factor and trust will always be differentiating elements”, the sector will require “new skills and new profiles, as well as the ability to relate to one another in different ways”.
At international level, she stresses the growing importance of this dimension in VdA’s positioning, stating that “our expectation is that in 2025 international business will represent an even more significant component of topline revenue and will deliver very attractive levels of profitability”. The firm’s international presence is based on an integrated network of offices in Portuguese-speaking African countries and in Timor-Leste, and “we are present in Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, São Tomé and Príncipe and Timor-Leste through offices fully integrated into the VdA Legal Partners network, which provide legal advice under the law of the respective country”. This is, in her words, “a network of independent law firms that share the ambition of being the leading firm in their respective markets, offering clients truly local expertise while ensuring international quality and consistency”.
VdA’s international strategy also includes Spain and Brazil, markets where the firm is present “to identify new opportunities for the provision of legal services, in Portugal and across the other VdA Legal Partners jurisdictions, to Spanish and Brazilian clients seeking to invest here”. At the same time, coverage of the main origination markets is ensured through preferred relationships, as “we also cover the most relevant origination markets – the UK, the US and Continental Europe – through preferred relationships with local firms and participation in referral networks”. For Paula Gomes Freire, “the strategy is clear: to accompany and serve our clients wherever they are and to access new markets that enable us to sustain attractive levels of growth”.
As regards priorities for the coming year, she identifies areas closely linked to public policy, digital transformation and the European framework. These include “infrastructure, considering the current Government’s intentions in this area”, as well as “energy, given its central role in digital transformation”. She also highlights “digital and defence, due to alignment with European industrial policy and taking into account Portugal’s competitive advantage in terms of energy prices”, noting that “the development of data centres and the announced investments by Microsoft clearly demonstrate the potential of these areas in our country”.
