April 21, 2025 • 25 mins
Gabriel Lins is a lawyer at CSC Netherlands, where he provides legal support on corporate governance matters to global private-equity firms. He holds an LL.M degree in Commercial and Company Law from Erasmus University Rotterdam (NL), graduating with cum laude, and a bachelor's degree from Federal University of Pernambuco (BRA).
Gabriel is admitted to the Brazilian Bar Association and has also worked in the country advising clients in venture capital and M&A transactions, corporate restructurings, and commercial contracts.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:14):
Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of
Studying Law around the world. Today have the opportunity to
welcoming Gabrielle Lines. He has recently completed a
Masters in Company and Commercial Law at the Erasmus
University Rotterdam. And we'll be talking about
working in the legal field in the Netherlands.
We'll talk about his special team law and we'll talk about
(00:36):
his career. Thank you so much for joining us
today, Gabriel. At the Pleasure is mine,
Claudio. Thank you for having me.
It's honestly a pleasure to be speaking with your listeners
today. Hopefully it's going to be a
fruitful conversation. Absolutely.
Thank you so much. And to start our conversation
today, I'd love to hear a littlebit more about your journey and
(00:57):
maybe even what motivated you todo an LLM and continue pursuing
your career in Europe. Yeah, that's actually a good
question to also set up the conversation.
Well, I reached a point in my career, early career in Brazil
that I realized that I was already working with clients on
(01:17):
international transactions in English.
And I always had also this, yeah, this feeling that I wanted
to do something internationally.So it was a very well thought
decision to pursue my education,my master's degree abroad.
I've selected several countries to be fair, and the Netherlands
(01:38):
was one of the top ones in my case.
And I think this goes also to Brazilian lawyers in general.
Brazilian lawyers, when they want to pursue education abroad,
they either go to the US for an LLM and this is usually big law
firm lawyers, or they go to Europe and specifically to
Portugal. In my case, I didn't have the a
(02:02):
law firm backing me up for example, to do LLM in the US,
for example, where the fees are actually quite high.
And yeah, and I wanted also to have a more international
environment and studying in English.
So I've researched several countries, I've applied to many
universities and programs, and Iwas very fortunate to be
(02:22):
selected to a scholarship here in the Netherlands and studying
the Erasmus University of Rotterdam.
So I'm very, very happy for that.
That's that. That was the beginning of my
masters pursuit, but in a way I went before coming here.
I had no idea that actually I could pursue a career here, so I
(02:45):
came here to further my knowledge and commercial company
law. But I've also realized that
there were many opportunities for educated lawyers.
There are many international companies that are based here,
businesses that are made having the Netherlands as a key
jurisdiction. And the working language in most
of these cases is English. So yeah, I also became
(03:06):
interested in also experimentingalso the legal career here.
And yeah, maybe that's a good introduction.
Amazing. That's fantastic.
Thank you so much for sharing that with us.
And then considering that you'veworked through these different
legal systems, I'd love to know a little more about if your
background, if you're Brazilian civil law background shaped in
(03:30):
any way the way you approached your current kind of study.
And also, did you study the areayou're working with or how did
that come about? Yes, that's actually an
excellent question. And I must say never thought
really truly about that. I think, well, I think
(03:50):
everything, or at least the foundation of my legal knowledge
today I owe to the Brazilian legal background, the marble
Brazilian legal background, specifically what I had with the
Bing, Yeah, read it from the Federal University of of Bamboo.
So yeah, I owe most of my foundation to to this
(04:10):
institution. Not sure to what extent the
Brazilian legal content context kind of shaped what I'm doing
right now or how I approach things right now.
I would say first Dutch law and Brazilian law, they do share
commonalities. They're both common civil law
(04:33):
systems, so it's great. Sometimes a professor during my
masters would point out a fact of of in Dutch law and it
happened to be the same in Brazilian law.
So quite it's no coincidence, right?
Both are civil law systems and, but from legal practice and to
be more, maybe a bit more practical, I think in, in
(04:57):
Brazil, we are taught to be veryproactive when we are reaching
clients and when we are reaching, for example, local,
local works and liaising with the, for example, the quartz.
And also I think servicing the client in a way that, yeah, in a
more approachable way, let's putit that way.
So I think those are two good lessons that I took from my
(05:21):
practice and I still apply today.
But in a broader sense, I was shaped by the Brazilian legal
context. So I cannot really detach myself
and my practice from it. Amazing.
And specifically talking about your LLM, from what I saw you,
it was a research LLM. You'd have to write a thesis and
(05:44):
you wrote specifically on the corporate governance.
So I'd love to hear a little bitmore about that.
What made you choose that topic?What are some key insights that
stayed with you from that research as well?
Yeah, thank you for the questionclause.
Very interesting. This was a topic that came up to
(06:05):
me while I was researching for aresearch topic.
The first reason was that that was my favorite object in my
masters, corporate governance. I had fantastic professors, and
it was actually pretty clear to me that I wanted to do something
(06:26):
in this field. So I started researching and I
wanted to do something also connected to Brazilian law.
And I've realized that the Brazil's corporate law,
corporation law was relatively recently amended to include the
possibility of companies adopting dual class shares.
And this was the change pursued in 2021.
(06:49):
And yeah, I wanted to understanda bit more what motivated that.
And I came across a situation inwhich many jurisdictions
actually were in a rush, were ina run to actually flexibility
their own legal systems to allowfor companies to have this
mechanism implemented. And what was also interested to
(07:12):
me that this, um, this movement was also very much guided by
tech companies that wanted to adopt this sort of mechanism to
ensure that their founders, for example, they keep the control
of the company while raising capital on the public markets.
(07:32):
So for example, Amazon, Facebook, Snapchat, but also our
Brazilian champions, new bank, Paxi Guru, they all establish
some sort of dual class share mechanisms.
And because I was very interested and and I was also
already working in Brazil with tech companies, I thought that
(07:53):
was the perfect, the perfect match to unite Brazilian legal
context, corporate governance, international discussions and
tech. So maybe that was it for my
motivation. And more broadly, I think I had
interesting, very interesting findings specifically about my
research topic. I think one key take away would
(08:15):
be that and more general that corporations they are made of or
they are at crossroads when theytry to encompass different
interests, the interests of shareholders, of the board,
members of stakeholders such as workers, environmentalists,
state right. So government and and usually
(08:39):
the board members are the ones to to consider all these
interests that sometimes collideand take decisions.
So I think that was one of the insights that I had that
corporations are actually very complex creature and the
decision matrix of board membersare very complex as well.
(09:02):
So I think it's a broader conclusion rather than 1
specifically attached to dual class shares, but something that
I found it really interesting during my research as well.
That's amazing. It also sounds like the context
in which the economy is living and big companies and all of
(09:22):
that also drives some of these legal reforms.
So that's also pretty interesting to take a look at.
And if I were to ask you about your time at the university,
what are some of the things thatyou found the most challenging,
most rewarding? Was it like very different than
any other previous academic experience you had?
(09:44):
Did you find a lot of commonalities?
What are some of your thoughts on that?
Well, it was pretty different, Imust say.
There were some challenges, but I I would say much more rewards
in this sense. The master program in itself was
kind of challenge challenging, also fast-paced in this sense.
(10:07):
I would say one big cultural shock is was how exams took
place in Brazil are usually. Yeah, I just took my exams in my
own lecture room without. Yeah, only with my professor in
it and my colleagues. And here in the Netherlands,
there's a whole system of, for example, fraud detection, but
(10:30):
also you're put in a big room with many students, not only
your colleagues, but it could belike different, even different
courses. You're given a computer and you
have to type your responses. Your answer is in these
computers given by the university.
It really looks like for us Brazilians, looks like a
(10:50):
vegetable national exam to enterthe university.
It's a more critical, I would say, and yeah, a process.
So to me it was a shock and it can be stressing if you're not
used to that. But definitely in terms of
rewards, I would say interactingacross cultures and having
(11:12):
classmates that are from all over the world.
I think we had in our classroom colleagues from every continent,
and so people from the US, people from Latin American
General, Africa, Asia, Oceania, many, many places in Europe as
(11:33):
well. So it's very interesting to
interact also with these colleagues and understand their
legal system also. I mean, very, very fruitful as
well. And the human connection as
well. I, I, I made many good, good
friends in so many different parts of the world.
Now I have, I've promised so many friends to visit them in
(11:57):
distant places on earth. So, and I have to keep my
promise, you know, so I will be most likely traveling a lot in
the upcoming years. So I would say this is, this was
the most rewarding part. Of course, I mean, the, the
program in itself was amazing and we had many different
activities. It was very well organized.
(12:18):
So I was very, very happy with my choosing the program that I
pursued. That's amazing.
And now that you're working in Amsterdam, how would you
describe a little bit of, of thelegal scenario, the legal work
culture maybe compared to, you know, your experience in Brazil,
but but also, you know, the other things that you've, you
(12:40):
know, heard about all other countries Navigate that.
And especially with this richness of, of contacts that
you received with having friendsand colleagues from all over the
world in your program. Well, Amsterdam is really a like
a very bursting city, right? It's, it's very interesting and
full of activities. I would say the Netherlands in
(13:02):
general is, it's a country that is very well known for its
corporation and trade even in history, right?
So Dutch traders were once very,very famous to because they
control the global trade routes.The first Stock Exchange and
public corporation was actually founded in the Netherlands.
(13:25):
So it is, you can clearly see that it is a country that is
built on trading commercial transactions and business.
So I think this is maybe this isone part of the legal culture
that is very relevant here. It's more more business driven
and more it is driven by efficiency as well in this sense
(13:49):
that you want to keep all the, Idon't know, all the disputes and
personal things that you have maybe against someone aside and
just deal with the business partof transactions.
So to say that, compare it to Brazil, this is something that
stood out to me, but also other things.
For example, I think here we rely more on trust than than in
(14:13):
Brazil. If someone says they will
undertake this task, just rest assured that they will give you
an answer and that they will, you know, have their, yeah,
their tasks completed on that time.
So this is this is something that stood out to me as well.
Yeah. Basically, if you, for example,
(14:34):
send a correspondence and, and, and yeah, I think in Brazil, we
usually try to certify that everything will be in the
correct place. So you have, for example, to
liaise with the courts workers, you have to liaise with the
trade register. You have to, even when I was a
legal intern, I did it a lot, going to courts and go into the
(14:56):
trade register just to say like,please, please can you take a
look at this? We filed this, I don't know,
like 3 weeks ago and nothing happened so far.
So can you please do your job? So sometimes this was kind of
frustrating. And here I feel like everyone
has its time. Everyone understands that some
stuff take time and institutionsusually work a bit better
(15:20):
outside this. A small note also on work life
balance. People here in opposition to
Brazil, I think they value a bitmore this work life balance and,
and they try to enforce it towards colleagues, for example,
Whereas in Brazil, if you leave,I don't know, the office before
6:00 PM, maybe you are, you're lazy or you are not putting the
(15:44):
correct amount of effort. But not all is bad from Brazil.
Not, don't, don't, don't understand this way.
I think for example, when it comes to trade register, we have
in Brazil everything almost fully digital.
It's pretty more modern. And here, for example, we still
exchange letters with the trade register, physical letters.
(16:06):
And so not everything is on the bad side for Brazil.
Absolutely. I'm glad you touched on work
life balance because I was very curious about that.
And if I may ask, I don't know if you've experienced this just
yet, but do lawyers usually havelike a vacation scheme because
they know most of the world doesn't have a like, you know,
(16:29):
we have our courts closing at the end of the year in Brazil.
And with that, usually, you know, we, we get that vacation
at the end of the year. How how does that look like in
in the Netherlands most generally speaking?
Well, also it varies depending on where you work or which line
of the legal sector you're working on.
(16:50):
If you work on companies, you most certainly have some
guaranteed holidays paid and also other sorts of special
leaves that you can take as well.
So it varies. Usually it's not nothing below
20 days a year and you don't do not count weekends for example
(17:12):
in this map. So if you want to take a full
week is going to be only 5 days and the and the weekends are
already Yeah, it does not count.This is different than in
Brazil, for example. Of course, if you work in a law
firm, this is usually a bit moredifficult because of the how in
general and and throughout the word this law firm relationship
(17:34):
associate relationship, how theywork.
But usually people do have holidays, paid holidays, and
they do have some good perks to be honest on working in the
Netherlands and in the legal field specific.
As well. Fantastic.
If I may ask you now about looking back at your transition,
(17:59):
you know, practicing and studying in Brazil and, and
thinking back to your time as a student a couple years back,
what would you wish that more students knew about global legal
careers? I'm, I'm thinking here that
while you did like a very well thought out decision, maybe that
(18:19):
didn't start on your first day of class in law school, right?
That you developed that a lot more.
So what maybe you wish people would know, or what would you
want students to be inspired to learn about?
Well, I would wish that they knew that global legal careers
actually exist. They do exist and sometimes it's
(18:41):
difficult to, to understand this.
Even even for me, I, I, I was already on the path of coming
here. I came here for masters and even
here I was not that much aware that I could pursue a career
here. So the lack of information that
we currently have, I think this is something that we need to
(19:06):
change. And I think, for example, your
podcast does a great job in sending this message to the to
the world and, and to, for example, Brazilian students to
yeah, actually understand that legal careers exist.
I always thought I grew up thinking that if I chose law as
a career, I would be bound to the country that I graduated in.
(19:28):
And although I must say this is true.
And the majority of the legal practitioners, you don't need to
be the, you can be the exception.
So you can actually pursue global or careers.
There is demand for lawyers educated in in foreign legal
systems across the globe, and you can benefit from it just for
(19:50):
a. Quick side note here, I don't
know if I've ever said this in the podcast before, but I got
the chance to start law school and then I took an opportunity
to spend some time in the Statesand then came back to Brazil to
law school. And right after that experience,
I was super excited about doing something international.
(20:10):
So I went to the demo of law in my university and, and I was
talking to her and now and she had a masters from abroad as
well. So I thought, you know, there's
no better person to to chat. And actually, she told me
something along the lines of, Hey, if you want to do something
international, go do engineering, go do something
else like law. It's not a good like
(20:30):
international career for you to study.
And, and honestly that, you know, put me down for a little
bit. I was so fortunate that, you
know, during the pandemic, so many people were online and I
got you here, so many people that got, you know, successful
legal careers abroad. And definitely that was, you
know, a big incentive. And, and kind of like, because
(20:51):
of that, I also end up doing international relations as an
undergrad because I was a littlebit afraid that I wouldn't be
able to do anything international.
But I'm glad I, I, I, you know, just continued on with law and
it's definitely being an amazingexperience.
And I'm glad that you know, I'm hearing out there people with
(21:15):
successful experiences each timemore so thank you so much for
for sharing yours. No, thank you.
And, and it's actually a great example.
And yeah, how sometimes we don'tknow about this, right?
Yeah, I think you, you do an amazing job.
And I think you took this example and and now you, I think
you actually created a very interesting way of sharing this
(21:39):
knowledge too with everyone. So Congrats to you as well.
Thank you so much. Yeah, I want to make sure that
nobody else leaves the Deans office thinking that they, if
they choose law, they can never leave the country.
Yeah, amazing. Well, as we come to the end of
our conversation today, what do you think about your values and
(22:02):
careers, career goals? And how do you stay intentional
about the work you choose and the impact you want to have?
And, and let me tell you just a little back to the this
question. A few of the previous podcast
episodes, I've spoken with people who talked, who told me
about their career goals, who told me about some hard
(22:25):
questions that they thought through through their careers.
And I'm just so excited to know that, you know, a lot of people
have thought about those and, and I just never realized.
So I'd, I'd love to hear a little bit about, you know, your
thoughts on that. That's, that's a good question,
Claudio. And to be honest, I think yeah,
(22:46):
it's a difficult one. I I would say having a cup of
coffee. It's is my preferred way of
staying intentional and not sureif that's the most polished
advice. I I really appreciate when,
yeah, when it comes to career decisions and personal
decisions, I think you have to spare some time and reflect on
(23:10):
what you want to achieve both professionally and personally,
and you cannot detach one from the other.
Sometimes people try to do so. I think if you have a cup of
coffee with yourself and actually reflect on this or
Paffen where you want to move forward, I think this is at
(23:32):
least this is the the way that works for me.
Or for example, listening to other peoples experience.
This is also very helpful when again, your podcast comes very
in hand for that. Maybe a good advice to people is
listening to your podcast with acup of coffee and while you're
listening Claudio talk and also his amazing guests, think about
(23:56):
your own personal and professional pursuits.
I think that's a good advice. But seriously, I think
intentional, it's more a matter of actually periodically
rethinking where are you are going?
Where do you want to be? And yeah, just not be
(24:17):
comfortable with all the time. You know, we live in a in a
society that demands a lot from us, for sure.
But at the same time, I think the we only have one life and if
you we want to accomplish some stuff, if we want to do
something, some stuff with our lives, both professionally and
personally, yeah, why not stay intentional?
(24:38):
You're amazing. Thank you so much for sharing
that and thank you for taking the time to sharing your
experience here in the podcast. I'm sure it will inspire many
other people. So thank you guys who listen to
this podcast today. Appreciate your time and we'll
see you on the next episode.
Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of
Studying Law around the world. Today have the opportunity to
welcoming Gabrielle Lines. He has recently completed a
Masters in Company and Commercial Law at the Erasmus
University Rotterdam. And we'll be talking about
working in the legal field in the Netherlands.
We'll talk about his special team law and we'll talk about
(00:36):
his career. Thank you so much for joining us
today, Gabriel. At the Pleasure is mine,
Claudio. Thank you for having me.
It's honestly a pleasure to be speaking with your listeners
today. Hopefully it's going to be a
fruitful conversation. Absolutely.
Thank you so much. And to start our conversation
today, I'd love to hear a littlebit more about your journey and
(00:57):
maybe even what motivated you todo an LLM and continue pursuing
your career in Europe. Yeah, that's actually a good
question to also set up the conversation.
Well, I reached a point in my career, early career in Brazil
that I realized that I was already working with clients on
(01:17):
international transactions in English.
And I always had also this, yeah, this feeling that I wanted
to do something internationally.So it was a very well thought
decision to pursue my education,my master's degree abroad.
I've selected several countries to be fair, and the Netherlands
(01:38):
was one of the top ones in my case.
And I think this goes also to Brazilian lawyers in general.
Brazilian lawyers, when they want to pursue education abroad,
they either go to the US for an LLM and this is usually big law
firm lawyers, or they go to Europe and specifically to
Portugal. In my case, I didn't have the a
(02:02):
law firm backing me up for example, to do LLM in the US,
for example, where the fees are actually quite high.
And yeah, and I wanted also to have a more international
environment and studying in English.
So I've researched several countries, I've applied to many
universities and programs, and Iwas very fortunate to be
(02:22):
selected to a scholarship here in the Netherlands and studying
the Erasmus University of Rotterdam.
So I'm very, very happy for that.
That's that. That was the beginning of my
masters pursuit, but in a way I went before coming here.
I had no idea that actually I could pursue a career here, so I
(02:45):
came here to further my knowledge and commercial company
law. But I've also realized that
there were many opportunities for educated lawyers.
There are many international companies that are based here,
businesses that are made having the Netherlands as a key
jurisdiction. And the working language in most
of these cases is English. So yeah, I also became
(03:06):
interested in also experimentingalso the legal career here.
And yeah, maybe that's a good introduction.
Amazing. That's fantastic.
Thank you so much for sharing that with us.
And then considering that you'veworked through these different
legal systems, I'd love to know a little more about if your
background, if you're Brazilian civil law background shaped in
(03:30):
any way the way you approached your current kind of study.
And also, did you study the areayou're working with or how did
that come about? Yes, that's actually an
excellent question. And I must say never thought
really truly about that. I think, well, I think
(03:50):
everything, or at least the foundation of my legal knowledge
today I owe to the Brazilian legal background, the marble
Brazilian legal background, specifically what I had with the
Bing, Yeah, read it from the Federal University of of Bamboo.
So yeah, I owe most of my foundation to to this
(04:10):
institution. Not sure to what extent the
Brazilian legal content context kind of shaped what I'm doing
right now or how I approach things right now.
I would say first Dutch law and Brazilian law, they do share
commonalities. They're both common civil law
(04:33):
systems, so it's great. Sometimes a professor during my
masters would point out a fact of of in Dutch law and it
happened to be the same in Brazilian law.
So quite it's no coincidence, right?
Both are civil law systems and, but from legal practice and to
be more, maybe a bit more practical, I think in, in
(04:57):
Brazil, we are taught to be veryproactive when we are reaching
clients and when we are reaching, for example, local,
local works and liaising with the, for example, the quartz.
And also I think servicing the client in a way that, yeah, in a
more approachable way, let's putit that way.
So I think those are two good lessons that I took from my
(05:21):
practice and I still apply today.
But in a broader sense, I was shaped by the Brazilian legal
context. So I cannot really detach myself
and my practice from it. Amazing.
And specifically talking about your LLM, from what I saw you,
it was a research LLM. You'd have to write a thesis and
(05:44):
you wrote specifically on the corporate governance.
So I'd love to hear a little bitmore about that.
What made you choose that topic?What are some key insights that
stayed with you from that research as well?
Yeah, thank you for the questionclause.
Very interesting. This was a topic that came up to
(06:05):
me while I was researching for aresearch topic.
The first reason was that that was my favorite object in my
masters, corporate governance. I had fantastic professors, and
it was actually pretty clear to me that I wanted to do something
(06:26):
in this field. So I started researching and I
wanted to do something also connected to Brazilian law.
And I've realized that the Brazil's corporate law,
corporation law was relatively recently amended to include the
possibility of companies adopting dual class shares.
And this was the change pursued in 2021.
(06:49):
And yeah, I wanted to understanda bit more what motivated that.
And I came across a situation inwhich many jurisdictions
actually were in a rush, were ina run to actually flexibility
their own legal systems to allowfor companies to have this
mechanism implemented. And what was also interested to
(07:12):
me that this, um, this movement was also very much guided by
tech companies that wanted to adopt this sort of mechanism to
ensure that their founders, for example, they keep the control
of the company while raising capital on the public markets.
(07:32):
So for example, Amazon, Facebook, Snapchat, but also our
Brazilian champions, new bank, Paxi Guru, they all establish
some sort of dual class share mechanisms.
And because I was very interested and and I was also
already working in Brazil with tech companies, I thought that
(07:53):
was the perfect, the perfect match to unite Brazilian legal
context, corporate governance, international discussions and
tech. So maybe that was it for my
motivation. And more broadly, I think I had
interesting, very interesting findings specifically about my
research topic. I think one key take away would
(08:15):
be that and more general that corporations they are made of or
they are at crossroads when theytry to encompass different
interests, the interests of shareholders, of the board,
members of stakeholders such as workers, environmentalists,
state right. So government and and usually
(08:39):
the board members are the ones to to consider all these
interests that sometimes collideand take decisions.
So I think that was one of the insights that I had that
corporations are actually very complex creature and the
decision matrix of board membersare very complex as well.
(09:02):
So I think it's a broader conclusion rather than 1
specifically attached to dual class shares, but something that
I found it really interesting during my research as well.
That's amazing. It also sounds like the context
in which the economy is living and big companies and all of
(09:22):
that also drives some of these legal reforms.
So that's also pretty interesting to take a look at.
And if I were to ask you about your time at the university,
what are some of the things thatyou found the most challenging,
most rewarding? Was it like very different than
any other previous academic experience you had?
(09:44):
Did you find a lot of commonalities?
What are some of your thoughts on that?
Well, it was pretty different, Imust say.
There were some challenges, but I I would say much more rewards
in this sense. The master program in itself was
kind of challenge challenging, also fast-paced in this sense.
(10:07):
I would say one big cultural shock is was how exams took
place in Brazil are usually. Yeah, I just took my exams in my
own lecture room without. Yeah, only with my professor in
it and my colleagues. And here in the Netherlands,
there's a whole system of, for example, fraud detection, but
(10:30):
also you're put in a big room with many students, not only
your colleagues, but it could belike different, even different
courses. You're given a computer and you
have to type your responses. Your answer is in these
computers given by the university.
It really looks like for us Brazilians, looks like a
(10:50):
vegetable national exam to enterthe university.
It's a more critical, I would say, and yeah, a process.
So to me it was a shock and it can be stressing if you're not
used to that. But definitely in terms of
rewards, I would say interactingacross cultures and having
(11:12):
classmates that are from all over the world.
I think we had in our classroom colleagues from every continent,
and so people from the US, people from Latin American
General, Africa, Asia, Oceania, many, many places in Europe as
(11:33):
well. So it's very interesting to
interact also with these colleagues and understand their
legal system also. I mean, very, very fruitful as
well. And the human connection as
well. I, I, I made many good, good
friends in so many different parts of the world.
Now I have, I've promised so many friends to visit them in
(11:57):
distant places on earth. So, and I have to keep my
promise, you know, so I will be most likely traveling a lot in
the upcoming years. So I would say this is, this was
the most rewarding part. Of course, I mean, the, the
program in itself was amazing and we had many different
activities. It was very well organized.
(12:18):
So I was very, very happy with my choosing the program that I
pursued. That's amazing.
And now that you're working in Amsterdam, how would you
describe a little bit of, of thelegal scenario, the legal work
culture maybe compared to, you know, your experience in Brazil,
but but also, you know, the other things that you've, you
(12:40):
know, heard about all other countries Navigate that.
And especially with this richness of, of contacts that
you received with having friendsand colleagues from all over the
world in your program. Well, Amsterdam is really a like
a very bursting city, right? It's, it's very interesting and
full of activities. I would say the Netherlands in
(13:02):
general is, it's a country that is very well known for its
corporation and trade even in history, right?
So Dutch traders were once very,very famous to because they
control the global trade routes.The first Stock Exchange and
public corporation was actually founded in the Netherlands.
(13:25):
So it is, you can clearly see that it is a country that is
built on trading commercial transactions and business.
So I think this is maybe this isone part of the legal culture
that is very relevant here. It's more more business driven
and more it is driven by efficiency as well in this sense
(13:49):
that you want to keep all the, Idon't know, all the disputes and
personal things that you have maybe against someone aside and
just deal with the business partof transactions.
So to say that, compare it to Brazil, this is something that
stood out to me, but also other things.
For example, I think here we rely more on trust than than in
(14:13):
Brazil. If someone says they will
undertake this task, just rest assured that they will give you
an answer and that they will, you know, have their, yeah,
their tasks completed on that time.
So this is this is something that stood out to me as well.
Yeah. Basically, if you, for example,
(14:34):
send a correspondence and, and, and yeah, I think in Brazil, we
usually try to certify that everything will be in the
correct place. So you have, for example, to
liaise with the courts workers, you have to liaise with the
trade register. You have to, even when I was a
legal intern, I did it a lot, going to courts and go into the
(14:56):
trade register just to say like,please, please can you take a
look at this? We filed this, I don't know,
like 3 weeks ago and nothing happened so far.
So can you please do your job? So sometimes this was kind of
frustrating. And here I feel like everyone
has its time. Everyone understands that some
stuff take time and institutionsusually work a bit better
(15:20):
outside this. A small note also on work life
balance. People here in opposition to
Brazil, I think they value a bitmore this work life balance and,
and they try to enforce it towards colleagues, for example,
Whereas in Brazil, if you leave,I don't know, the office before
6:00 PM, maybe you are, you're lazy or you are not putting the
(15:44):
correct amount of effort. But not all is bad from Brazil.
Not, don't, don't, don't understand this way.
I think for example, when it comes to trade register, we have
in Brazil everything almost fully digital.
It's pretty more modern. And here, for example, we still
exchange letters with the trade register, physical letters.
(16:06):
And so not everything is on the bad side for Brazil.
Absolutely. I'm glad you touched on work
life balance because I was very curious about that.
And if I may ask, I don't know if you've experienced this just
yet, but do lawyers usually havelike a vacation scheme because
they know most of the world doesn't have a like, you know,
(16:29):
we have our courts closing at the end of the year in Brazil.
And with that, usually, you know, we, we get that vacation
at the end of the year. How how does that look like in
in the Netherlands most generally speaking?
Well, also it varies depending on where you work or which line
of the legal sector you're working on.
(16:50):
If you work on companies, you most certainly have some
guaranteed holidays paid and also other sorts of special
leaves that you can take as well.
So it varies. Usually it's not nothing below
20 days a year and you don't do not count weekends for example
(17:12):
in this map. So if you want to take a full
week is going to be only 5 days and the and the weekends are
already Yeah, it does not count.This is different than in
Brazil, for example. Of course, if you work in a law
firm, this is usually a bit moredifficult because of the how in
general and and throughout the word this law firm relationship
(17:34):
associate relationship, how theywork.
But usually people do have holidays, paid holidays, and
they do have some good perks to be honest on working in the
Netherlands and in the legal field specific.
As well. Fantastic.
If I may ask you now about looking back at your transition,
(17:59):
you know, practicing and studying in Brazil and, and
thinking back to your time as a student a couple years back,
what would you wish that more students knew about global legal
careers? I'm, I'm thinking here that
while you did like a very well thought out decision, maybe that
(18:19):
didn't start on your first day of class in law school, right?
That you developed that a lot more.
So what maybe you wish people would know, or what would you
want students to be inspired to learn about?
Well, I would wish that they knew that global legal careers
actually exist. They do exist and sometimes it's
(18:41):
difficult to, to understand this.
Even even for me, I, I, I was already on the path of coming
here. I came here for masters and even
here I was not that much aware that I could pursue a career
here. So the lack of information that
we currently have, I think this is something that we need to
(19:06):
change. And I think, for example, your
podcast does a great job in sending this message to the to
the world and, and to, for example, Brazilian students to
yeah, actually understand that legal careers exist.
I always thought I grew up thinking that if I chose law as
a career, I would be bound to the country that I graduated in.
(19:28):
And although I must say this is true.
And the majority of the legal practitioners, you don't need to
be the, you can be the exception.
So you can actually pursue global or careers.
There is demand for lawyers educated in in foreign legal
systems across the globe, and you can benefit from it just for
(19:50):
a. Quick side note here, I don't
know if I've ever said this in the podcast before, but I got
the chance to start law school and then I took an opportunity
to spend some time in the Statesand then came back to Brazil to
law school. And right after that experience,
I was super excited about doing something international.
(20:10):
So I went to the demo of law in my university and, and I was
talking to her and now and she had a masters from abroad as
well. So I thought, you know, there's
no better person to to chat. And actually, she told me
something along the lines of, Hey, if you want to do something
international, go do engineering, go do something
else like law. It's not a good like
(20:30):
international career for you to study.
And, and honestly that, you know, put me down for a little
bit. I was so fortunate that, you
know, during the pandemic, so many people were online and I
got you here, so many people that got, you know, successful
legal careers abroad. And definitely that was, you
know, a big incentive. And, and kind of like, because
(20:51):
of that, I also end up doing international relations as an
undergrad because I was a littlebit afraid that I wouldn't be
able to do anything international.
But I'm glad I, I, I, you know, just continued on with law and
it's definitely being an amazingexperience.
And I'm glad that you know, I'm hearing out there people with
(21:15):
successful experiences each timemore so thank you so much for
for sharing yours. No, thank you.
And, and it's actually a great example.
And yeah, how sometimes we don'tknow about this, right?
Yeah, I think you, you do an amazing job.
And I think you took this example and and now you, I think
you actually created a very interesting way of sharing this
(21:39):
knowledge too with everyone. So Congrats to you as well.
Thank you so much. Yeah, I want to make sure that
nobody else leaves the Deans office thinking that they, if
they choose law, they can never leave the country.
Yeah, amazing. Well, as we come to the end of
our conversation today, what do you think about your values and
(22:02):
careers, career goals? And how do you stay intentional
about the work you choose and the impact you want to have?
And, and let me tell you just a little back to the this
question. A few of the previous podcast
episodes, I've spoken with people who talked, who told me
about their career goals, who told me about some hard
(22:25):
questions that they thought through through their careers.
And I'm just so excited to know that, you know, a lot of people
have thought about those and, and I just never realized.
So I'd, I'd love to hear a little bit about, you know, your
thoughts on that. That's, that's a good question,
Claudio. And to be honest, I think yeah,
(22:46):
it's a difficult one. I I would say having a cup of
coffee. It's is my preferred way of
staying intentional and not sureif that's the most polished
advice. I I really appreciate when,
yeah, when it comes to career decisions and personal
decisions, I think you have to spare some time and reflect on
(23:10):
what you want to achieve both professionally and personally,
and you cannot detach one from the other.
Sometimes people try to do so. I think if you have a cup of
coffee with yourself and actually reflect on this or
Paffen where you want to move forward, I think this is at
(23:32):
least this is the the way that works for me.
Or for example, listening to other peoples experience.
This is also very helpful when again, your podcast comes very
in hand for that. Maybe a good advice to people is
listening to your podcast with acup of coffee and while you're
listening Claudio talk and also his amazing guests, think about
(23:56):
your own personal and professional pursuits.
I think that's a good advice. But seriously, I think
intentional, it's more a matter of actually periodically
rethinking where are you are going?
Where do you want to be? And yeah, just not be
(24:17):
comfortable with all the time. You know, we live in a in a
society that demands a lot from us, for sure.
But at the same time, I think the we only have one life and if
you we want to accomplish some stuff, if we want to do
something, some stuff with our lives, both professionally and
personally, yeah, why not stay intentional?
(24:38):
You're amazing. Thank you so much for sharing
that and thank you for taking the time to sharing your
experience here in the podcast. I'm sure it will inspire many
other people. So thank you guys who listen to
this podcast today. Appreciate your time and we'll
see you on the next episode.
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.