Sérvulo celebrates its 25th anniversary in Lisbon
Sérvulo & Associados celebrated its 25th anniversary with a cocktail event in Lisbon at Pátio da Galé, attended by more than 400 people, including clients, partners, colleagues, and staff. The celebration saw the presence of partners from Sérvulo Latitude, representing Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Macau, São Tomé and Príncipe, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, as well as Madeira and the Azores.
The slogan for these 25 years of the firm is “It’s Human Knowledge, after all”. Founded in the late 1990s, it quickly established itself as a reference in public law in the country. Over time, Sérvulo evolved into a full-service law firm, currently covering more than 40 practice areas, including arbitration, corporate, commercial and M&A, corporate crime & regulatory compliance, European & competition law, among others. Today, the firm has a team of 120 lawyers and over 150 staff members.
With a distinguished career spanning over six decades in public law and dispute resolution, founding partner professor José Manuel Sérvulo Correia celebrated the firm’s sense of community in his speech during the 25th-anniversary event. “We are united by a shared heritage of values, knowledge, and experience, which makes us a community, among many others that intersect with us in the fabric of existence”, he said. “At a historic moment when forces adverse to the rule of law are rising from various sides, we stand together defending it through the daily exercise of our professions and the defense of legitimate rights and interests deserving respect under the Constitution and the culture it enshrines.”
In an exclusive interview for Iberian Lawyer magazine in September (click here to download and read), professor Sérvulo Correia explained how the firm is broadening its horizons to strengthen alliances in strategic regions and foster collaborations, while also outlining the steady progress the firm has made over the past decades. “I attribute our success to two main factors: the unity among the partners based on a shared vision for a common project and the market’s recognition of the quality of the legal services we provide”, he said at the time.
Unique Culture
According to Sérvulo’s managing partner, Manuel Magalhães, the firm has grown with its own unique culture based on two pillars: “One is meritocratic, expressed in our ties to academia, in the rigor and depth of our knowledge, and the other is humanistic, based on the idea that, above all, we are a firm of people (‘It’s human knowledge after all’, as our manifesto says), and this is reflected in the care we take with all our staff, as well as the community we are part of”, he said in his speech during the celebration.
“We believe the future of the legal sector will be increasingly competitive, complex, and sophisticated. The quality and efficiency of organizations, along with the productivity and quality gains that new technologies, especially Artificial Intelligence, offer, will be key success factors in the future”, Magalhães emphasized.
In his speech, Magalhães praised the role of Sérvulo’s team in contributing to the firm’s growth over the years. “Great teams are built with talent, dedication, and cohesion. With the team we have, it’s entirely in our hands to ensure Sérvulo continues to grow and thrive in the future as it has in the past”, he said.
Globally, Sérvulo is a member of three international networks of law firms (Legalink, Cathay Associates, and Roxin Alliance) and has a presence in Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, São Tomé and Príncipe, Macau, East Timor, and the Autonomous Regions of Madeira and the Azores, through its own multilateral network of leading law firms in Portuguese-speaking jurisdictions (SÉRVULO LATITUDE⦵). In recent years, Sérvulo has also created a set of foreign representations such as the African desk, as well as the Brazilian, French, German, Scandinavian, and Spanish desks.
