Optimism expected for 2025, but with challenges and instability ahead.

The activity of law firms is expected to continue growing next year, taking advantage of the accelerated pace of economic expansion and relying on the recovery of mergers and acquisitions processes. This is the expectation of the managing partners of the leading firms.

 

"2024 has been a year of growth for the legal sector, which has benefited from economic growth, foreign investment, and the dynamism of certain sectors, namely the financial, real estate, energy, and infrastructure sectors," says Manuel Magalhães, managing partner at SÉRVULO. The only setback was that mergers and acquisitions operations were affected by geopolitical instability and high interest rates, which persisted for half a year.

 

For the coming year, the government forecasts that the growth rate of the gross domestic product will accelerate by 0.3 percentage points, reaching 2.1%, aligning with Europe. At the same time, the aggressive reduction in the European Central Bank’s key interest rates this year, along with the expectation that this trend will continue next year, has encouraged the advancement of mergers and acquisitions that had been put on hold, as the risk has decreased. Therefore, when anticipating the evolution of the sector for the next year, words like "positive," "optimistic," and "growth" are being used.