MDPs on the rise in Portugal

The reasons why the newest member of Auren’s Antea network, Cerejeira Namora Marinho Falcão, will be upping the stakes in the Portuguese market by Mario Alonso, Chairman of Auren International and Nuno Cerejeira Namora, managing partner at Cerejeira Namora Marinho Falcão.

by Michael Heron

In 2016, Iberian Lawyer published a report on the Portuguese legal market. The headline was that managing partners had started to prepare themselves for the prospect of the ‘Big Four’ consultancy firms increasing their efforts to enter Portugal. To this day, multi-disciplinary partnerships or MDPs, cannot operate as they do in the Spanish market, and are required to form an associated partnership or network with a local independent Portuguese firm. Deloitte welcomed Lisbon firm CTSU – Sociedade de Advogados into its legal network in 2015.

At the time, senior figures in the legal market expected others to follow. In 2016, RRP Advogados was founded by a former Linklaters lawyer, Ricardo Pereira, and joined EY’s network. In 2018, PwC Legal announced it had welcomed the newly founded Portuguese firm CCR Legal into its network. Fast forward to 2024 and Cerejeira Namora Marinho Falcão, joined Auren’s Antea network. Auren in Spain recorded a turnover of 85.7 million euros with a growth of 11.04% in the 2022-2023 financial year. The legal division, Auren Legal, recorded the biggest slice with 33.2 million euros in revenue, 11.4% more than the previous year, followed by the consulting division contributing 28.8 million and the audit division 20.2 million euros. In this interview, we caught up with their chairman Mario Alonso, who explained why the Portuguese market is so important and will help fuel their growth in Iberia. We also spoke with Nuno Cerejeira Namora, managing partner at Cerejeira Namora Marinho Falcão, who explained the reasons behind joining Auren’s network and what their future strategy will be.

According to the revenue rankings, Auren Legal Spain has grown by 12% in the last four years. Is it achievable for the firm to grow in double digits year on year?

Mario Alonso (MA): During the last four years, Auren Spain has grown by 44%. It is more than feasible that we will grow by double digits because we have already done so compared to the last year and we expect that figure to increase.

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