Lifetime Achievement Award: A life dedicated to the law
A life dedicated to the law has earned Paulo Cezar Aragão, one of BMA Advogados’ founding partners, Chambers and Partners’ Lifetime Achievement Award. The award, conferred by one of the most respected legal guides in the world, was delivered in March of this year, at the Chambers Brazil Awards 2023 ceremony in São Paulo.
In addition to celebrating the award received by the firm in the category of Competi-tion/Antitrust Law Firm of the Year during the Chambers Brazil Awards ceremony, BMA’s people – employees, associates and partners – commemorated the homage given to their founding partner and his career in the law. In 2000, Chambers and Partner had rec-ognized Paulo Aragão as one of the 20 best M&A lawyers in the world, and Paulo is the only Brazilian laywer who has been classified by Chambers and Partners as a Star Individual in Corporate M&A for over a decade.
Paulo has contributed to the legal market for more than 50 years. His career was inspired by his father, with whom Paulo worked, first as an intern and later as a lawyer, for more than 10 years. His time at the CVM, the Brazilian securities commission, just when the innovative structure of Brazil’s recently introduced corporations legislation presented a monumental challenge, along with more than a decade as a member of the law firm Gouvea Vieira, working with and learning from emblematic figures in the Brazilian legal world, such as José Nabuco and João Pedro Gouvea Vieira, were decisive in honing skills that would help Paulo to play a leading role in national and international Law, alongside his partners at the head of BMA Advogados.
Over the course of his career, Paulo formed many valuable alliances: as he himself said at the Chambers Brazil awards ceremony, it is essential to honor the importance of people met along the way, either as partners in an endeavor, or as adversaries: “In this line of just recognition, I must repeat here a comment I have made many times to my partners: being a lawyer, particularly a lawyer practicing business law, teaches us that, on receiving an award such as this, we should remember the Oscar awards ceremony, where only one person goes up on stage to receive the trophy, but the awardwinning movie would not exist without the contribution made by all the people whose names appear at the end of the film.”
What makes Paulo Aragão so deserving of accolades goes beyond his professional brilliance. This founding partner of BMA Advogados is an inspiration to all who work with him, particularly for his interpersonal skills. Paulo is an example of rectitude, openmindedness, courtesy, and congeniality. Unanimity, in Paulo’s case, is fairly won.
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