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De La Espriella Lawyers Enterprise
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Saturday, March 26, 2022
Abelardo De La Espriella, founding partner of the firm, spoke about the growth in turnover in 2021 and its expansion plans
Although the name of Abelardo De La Espriella is commonly associated with media criminal litigation, behind the lawyer there is an office with nearly 100 lawyers who practice in 15 practice areas in four cities: Bogotá, Medellín, Barranquilla and Miami. Now, De La Espriella Lawyers Enterprise will expand its international horizons and open an office in Madrid, as a prelude to the openings in Rome and Mexico.
How did you do in terms of billing last year?
We invoiced 15% more than the immediately previous year, and we have grown exponentially in areas such as civil litigation, commercial, mining, natural resources, technology, intellectual property and entertainment law. We have several departments, and the idea is to be able to provide a comprehensive service in all areas of law. All of this, of course, would not be possible without the wonderful team we have at the firm.
People associate De La Espriella with the media criminal cases you handle, but how many lawyers and practices do you have?
What happens is that the criminal is what makes the most noise, and that happens in all parts of the world, it is what generates the most curiosity, but we are a firm that is quite diversified with a broad portfolio of 15 practices. Today we are close to 100 lawyers in four offices: Bogotá, Barranquilla, Medellín and Miami, and on June 1 we launched our correspondent alliance in Madrid, which had been postponed due to the pandemic.
How will the office in Madrid work?
We have some allies there that we can’t reveal yet. It is a correspondent agreement but we are going to be there, because the idea is to expand the horizons, as has been budgeted for years, and then Rome and Mexico come, to continue our expansion process.
We are going to start with 10 or 12 lawyers in Madrid, 30% Colombian and 70% Spanish, and the other two cities still have no date, but it will be in the second half of this year.
With what practices do they arrive in Spain?
We have immigration, criminal, international trade, and of course investment issues, because a law firm not only serves to advise, but also to generate alliances, mergers, and synergies between clients that may have commercial ties. That is something that we want to dedicate ourselves to with our clients, because a firm, in reality, is a business center. Everything has a legal architecture, but in the end it is about being able to present clients, merging synergies to achieve commercial agreements. That is the vision, to expand the borders because the future of law is not in criminal law, but in other areas of practice that generate greater dividends and are less complex.
You are a litigant, but isn’t a bad agreement better than a good lawsuit, as they say?
In our office, 80% of the processes that we attend, which have been hundreds of thousands in these 20 years of practice, are resolved through conciliation and out-of-court settlements, never reaching court because, in reality, the good lawyer is the conciliator . A litigation, whatever it may be, wears down justice and generates a lot of wear, emotional and economic. The good lawyer, above all, must be a good conciliator to fix and avoid problems in court, such as criminal, civil and commercial cases.
Has any particular practice grown due to the electoral process?
People are looking for many forms of reorganization and asset protection and there is capital flight, including clients who have dual citizenship and have renounced their Colombian citizenship. People are looking, mainly, to put their assets in trusts outside Colombia, in the name of companies, and we have also seen many real estate investments in Florida and in Europe, because people are nervous about what might happen.
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