2019 CLS Brazil Forum - Speaker Biographies
Panel 1 | Human Rights: Social Issues and Diversity Challenges
Flavia Piovesan
Member of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
Visiting Scholar at the Harvard University
Professor Piovesan is also a PhD professor at the University of Buenos Aires, and a professor at the Academy on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law of the American University, in the USA. She conducted postdoctoral research in Harvard Law School, Oxford University and Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, where she studied the regional human right protection systems. She has been a professor of human rights in the post-graduate programs of the Catholic University of Paraná and the Pablo de Olavide University in Seville, Spain.
Professor Piovesan worked as Special Secretary of Human Rights in Brazil and chaired the National Commission for the Eradication of Slave Labour. She is also the author of numerous academic publications and has worked as a consultant for international organizations.
Kendall Thomas
Nash Professor of Law at Columbia Law School
Director of the Center for the Study of Law and Culture
Kendall Thomas is the Nash Professor of Law and co-founder and director of the Center for the Study of Law and Culture at Columbia Law School. His teaching and research interests include U.S. and comparative constitutional law, human rights, legal philosophy, feminist legal theory, critical race theory, and law and sexuality.
His past appointments include visiting professor at Stanford Law School and visiting professor in American studies and Afro-American studies at Princeton University. Thomas has taught or lectured in France, the Netherlands, England, The Czech Republic, Germany, Haiti, and South Africa.
His writings have appeared in several academic journals and volumes of collected essays. Thomas is a co-editor of Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings that Founded the Movement, The New Press, 1996, and What's Left of Theory?, Routledge Press, 2000.
Thomas was an inaugural recipient of the Berlin Prize Fellowship of the American Academy in Berlin and a member of the Special Committee of the American Center in Paris.
He is the past chair of the jurisprudence and law and humanities sections of the Association of American Law Schools. Thomas is a founding member of the Majority Action Caucus of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, Sex Panic! and the AIDS Prevention Action League. He is also the former member and vice chair of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis board of directors.
Daniel Sarmento
Lawyer and Constitutional Law Professor
Founder and head of the Human Rights Clinics of the State University of Rio de Janeiro
Daniel Sarmento served as prosecutor in the Brazilian Federal Prosecution's Office for many years. Currently, Professor Sarmento is the Head of Human Rights Clinic of the Rio de Janeiro State University (UERJ) and a leading public interest lawyer in Brazil. He is one of the finest members of a new generation of top constitutional scholars that is helping to reshape the constitutional landscape in Brazil through human rights. Professor Sarmento is a Tenure Professor of Constitutional Law at the Rio de Janeiro State University; earned his LL.B. (1991), Master of Laws (1999) and PHD (2003) from the same university and was a Visiting Scholar at Yale Law School (2006).
Marise Nogueira
Member of the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
In charge of human rights and social matters
Marise Ribeiro Nogueira was born in Niteroi, Rio de Janeiro. She graduated in Medicine at Escola de Medicina e Cirurgia da Universidade do Rio de Janeiro (UNI-RIO), in 1987. She received her Masters Degree in Radiology from Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro – UFRJ in 1995. Médécin attachée des Hopitaux de Paris – Université Paris VI, 1994. Marise worked in the Medical/Radiology field until 2003, when she became a diplomat.
Marise was International Advisor of the Secretariat for Women's Policies (2013-2014), Secretary of State for Policies for Women, Racial Equality and Human Rights of the Government of the Federal District (2015).
As a diplomat, Marise worked at the Brazilian embassies in Buenos Aires and Lima, where she worked with matters related to Human Rights, Consular and Cultural. In Brazil, she worked in the fields of Public Administration and Human Rights, being the head of the Division for Social Matters (2017-2018).
Marise is currently diplomatic career counselor at the Brazilian embassy in Washington.
Panel 2 | Capital Markets: Recent Issues and Developments
John Coffee Jr.
Adolf A. Berle Professor of Law
Director of the Center on Corporate Governance at CLS
John C. Coffee Jr. is the Adolf A. Berle Professor of Law and director of the Center on Corporate Governance at Columbia Law School. He is a fellow at the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and has been repeatedly listed by the National Law Journal as among its “100 Most Influential Lawyers in America.”
Coffee has served as a reporter to The American Law Institute for its Corporate Governance Project; has served on the Legal Advisory Board to the New York Stock Exchange; and as a member of the SEC’s advisory committee on the capital formation and regulatory processes.
Coffee is the author or editor of several widely used casebooks on corporations and securities regulation, including Securities Regulation: Cases and Materials, (with Hillary Sale), 2015, (13th edition); Cases and Materials on Corporations (with Jesse H. Choper and Ronald J. Gilson), 2013, (8th edition); and Business Organizations and Finance, (with William Klein and Frank Partnoy), 2010, (11th edition).
His scholarly books include Entrepreneurial Litigation: Its Rise, Fall, and Future, Harvard University Press, 2016; Gatekeepers: The Professions and Corporate Governance, Oxford University Press, 2006; Knights, Raiders, and Targets: The Impact of the Hostile Takeover, (with Louis Lowenstein and Susan Rose-Ackerman), Oxford University Press, 1988; and The Regulatory Aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis, (with Ellis Ferran, Niamh Moloney, and Jennifer G. Hill), Cambridge University Press, 2012.
According to a recent survey of law review citations, Coffee is the most cited law professor in law reviews over the last 10 years in the combined corporate, commercial, and business law field. In 2015, Lawdragon listed him on its 100-member “Hall of Fame” list of influential lawyers in the U.S.
Jed Rakoff
Federal District Judge for the Southern District of New York
Adjunct professor at Columbia Law School
Jed S. Rakoff has served since March 1996 as a U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of New York. He frequently sits by designation on the 2nd and 9th Circuit Courts of Appeals. Judge Rakoff is an Adjunct Professor at both Columbia Law School and NYU Law School, and also teaches at Berkeley Law School and the University of Virginia Law School. He has written over 170 published articles, 700 speeches, 1800 judicial opinions, and co-authored 5 books. He is also a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books.
Judge Rakoff holds a B.A. degree from Swarthmore College (1964), an M.Phil. degree from Oxford University (Balliol, 1966), and a J.D. degree from Harvard Law School (1969). Following law school, he clerked for the late Hon. Abraham L. Freedman, US Court of Appeals, Third Circuit, and was then an associate at the Debevoise law firm. From 1973-80, he served as an Assistant United States Attorney Office in the Southern District of New York, the last two years as Chief of Business & Securities Fraud Prosecutions. Thereafter, before going on the bench, he was a litigation partner at two large law firms in New York.
Judge Rakoff served on the National Commission on Forensic Science and as co-chair of the National Academy of Science’s Committee on Eyewitness Identification. He served on the New York City Bar Association’s Executive Committee and was chair of the Association’s Nomination, Honors and Criminal Law Committees. He was Chair of the Second Circuit’s Bankruptcy Committee, and of the Southern District of New York’s Grievance Committee and Criminal Justice Advisory Board. He served on Swarthmore College’s Board of Managers, on the Governance Board of the MacArthur Foundation’s Project on Law and Neuroscience, and on the Committee on the Development of the 3rd Edition of the Manual on Scientific Evidence. He assisted the U.S. Government in the training of foreign judges in Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bosnia, Dubai, Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. He is a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Law Institute. He is a Judicial Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and the American Board of Criminal Lawyers. Among other awards, he received in 2018 the Federal Bar Council’s Learned Hand Medal for Excellence in Federal Jurisprudence.
Judge Rakoff is married to Dr. Ann Rakoff, a child development specialist. They have three daughters and two grandsons. Judge Rakoff has officiated at over 70 weddings. He is the author of numerous lyrics and humorous poems, several of which have been published. His and his wife’s hobby is ballroom dancing. In 2014, Judge Rakoff was listed by Fortune Magazine as one of the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders.
Roger A. Cooper
Partner at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton
Mr. Cooper is a partner from Cleary Gottlieb, specialized in appellate litigation, corporate advisory, corporate governance, cybersecurity and privacy, intellectual property, litigation and arbitration, securities and M&A litigation.
He holds a J.D. degree from Columbia Law School and PH.D degree from Duke University.
Roger Cooper’s practice focuses on complex civil litigation, with an emphasis on disputes arising out of securities, M&A and derivative transactions, as well as on corporate governance issues. He also is very active in Cleary’s pro bono practice.
He was recognized as Litigation Star and Local Litigation Star by Benchmark Litigation and ranked in Litigation: Securities by Chambers USA.
Mr Cooper is a member of the New York State Bar, the U.S. District Courts, Eastern and Southern Districts of New York, the Committee on Securities Litigation, Association of the Bar of the City of New York and a board member of The Fund for Modern Courts.
Jean Marcel Arakawa
Partner at Mattos Filho, Veiga Filho, Marrey Jr. e Quiroga Advogados
Jean Marcel Arakawa advises corporations, financial institutions and institutional investors on a wide array of corporate and financial transactions, securities and payment services regulations. His experience includes public offerings and private placements of equity, debt and hybrid securities, listing of securities in exchange markets, private equity investments and divestments, and corporate transactions involving public companies. He is a member of the Regulatory Committee of the Brazilian Association of Venture Capital and Private Equity (ABVCAP).
Jean received his Bachelor of Laws Degree from Universidade de São Paulo. He received his Master of Laws (LL.M.) Degree from New York University
Jean has been recognized as a notable practitioner by: Chambers Global – Capital Markets (2012 – 2019); Chambers Latin America – Capital Markets (2012 – 2019); IFLR 1000 Financial and Corporate – Leading Lawyer: Banking, Capital Markets (2014 – 2017);
Highly regarded: Capital Markets, Banking (2018 – 2019); The Legal 500 – Capital Markets (2012 – 2016); Corporate/M&A (2016); Who’s Who Legal Brazil – Capital Markets (2018)
Bruno Racy
Partner at Machado Meyer, Sendacz & Opice Advogados
Mr. Racy is a partner from Machado Meyer Advogados, specialized in project finance, structured transactions, debt restructuring and capital markets encompassing all sectors of the local infrastructure and regulated markets.
He holds a Master of Laws Degree (LL.M.) from the University of California - Berkeley and Bachelor of Laws (J.D. equivalent) from Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo. He also worked at Chadbourne & Parke LLP, New York, NY, USA.
He represents investors, financial institutions, multilateral bodies, export credit agencies, investment funds, borrowers, shareholders and sponsors, and other players involved in such transactions, both in Brazil and abroad. His practice encompasses the structuring, implementation, development, negotiation and review of all relevant aspects of project finance transactions, structured and corporate financing, asset finance, operational and financial lease, export financing, derivative instruments, debt transactions in general – including in capital markets –, debt restructuring and renegotiation, mergers and acquisitions, incorporations and other corporate transactions. Experienced in industries such as transportation, energy, sanitation, ports, airports, highways, oil and gas, maritime, banking, mining, sugar and ethanol, and paper and cellulose.
He was recognized as "Notable Practitioner" by the guide IFLR1000, 2019 and 2018 editions.
Mr. Racy is a member of the Brazilian Bar Association, the New York State Bar and Brazilian Association of International Banks (ABBI).
Lunch Panel | Corporate Social Responsibility: An Ongoing Change in Paradigms
Luiz Ildefonso Simões Lopes
Brookfield Brazil Executive Chairman
Member of the Board of Trustees of FGV
Luiz Lopes is the Executive Chair of Brookfield Brazil where he provides strategic oversight for the region and focuses on building and maintaining senior strategic client and business relationships in Brazil.
Mr. Lopes was Chief Executive Officer of Brookfield Brazil from 2007 to 2017. Prior to joining Brookfield in 1994, Mr. Lopes was Chief Executive Officer and a Director of Magliano CTVM, as well as Managing Director of Fiat Leasing and Banco Fiat.
Mr. Lopes is a member of the Board of Directors of the Brazilian Symphonic Orchestra and the Brazil-Canada Chamber of Commerce. He also is a member of the International Advisory Board of Fundação Dom Cabral, a world renowned executive education center, and is a member of the Board of Trustees of Fundação Getúlio Vargas, a leading academic and research center.
Otto Licks
Partner at Licks Attorneys
Otto Licks is a partner at Licks Attorneys, a Brazilian law firm described as a “litigation juggernaut” that has about 200 people among its offices in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Brasília and Tokyo. He is an expert on complex litigation and policy making, with over 25 years of experience representing international clients in life sciences (small molecules, biologicals, agrochemicals and medical devices), telecom, electronics and internet.
Otto has established a reputation as a trial and appellate practice “great litigator”, focusing on preliminary and permanent injunctions and monetization (damages and licensing), advising clients primarily on patent, trade secrets, unfair competition and regulatory data exclusivity, government procurement, food and drug and regulatory of telecom and internet. He has been recognized by clients in some of the most important international rankings for his "availability at all times and ability to go all out and provide innovative solutions", “[…] why we instruct him with our most complex cases”.
He was the first chair in over 100 cases, from TROs and ex-parte injunctions up to leading cases before the Brazilian Supreme Court. Otto is an accomplished speaker in the United States, Europe and Asia and has published extensively in his areas of expertise.
Panel 3 | Constitutional Democracy: Crisis and New Challenges
Luís Roberto Barroso
Justice of the Brazilian Supreme Court (STF)
Justice Luís Roberto Barroso is an Associated Justice at the Brazilian Federal Supreme Court since 2013. Before joining the Court, he was a State Attorney at Rio de Janeiro Attorney's General Office and one of the leading Public Law practitioners in Brazil. On the academic field, Justice Barroso has been a top Constitutional Scholar for a long time, helping to shape the constitutional thought in Brazil, specially on topics related to civil rights and judicial powers. Professor Barroso is a Tenure Professor of Constitutional Law, Rio de Janeiro State University; Master of Laws, Yale Law School (1989); Visiting Scholar, Harvard Law School (2011). Senior Fellow, Harvard Kennedy School.
Jamal Greene
Dwight Professor of Law at Columbia Law School
Jamal Greene is the Dwight Professor of Law at Columbia Law School. His scholarship focuses on the structure of legal and constitutional argument. Greene is the author of more than 30 law review articles and is a frequent media commentator on the Supreme Court and on constitutional law. Greene served as a law clerk to the Honorable Guido Calabresi on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and for the Honorable John Paul Stevens on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Mark Tushnet
William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law at Harvard Law School
Mark Tushnet is William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. He is the co-author of four casebooks, including the most widely used casebook on constitutional law, has written numerous books, including a two-volume work on the life of Justice Thurgood Marshall and, most recently, Advanced Introduction to Comparative Constitutional Law, In the Balance: The Roberts Court and the Future of Constitutional Law, Why the Constitution Matters, and Weak Courts, Strong Rights: Judicial Review and Social Welfare Rights in Comparative Perspective, and has edited several others. He was President of the Association of American Law Schools in 2003. In 2002 he was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Samuel Issacharoff
Bonnie and Richard Reiss Professor of Constitutional Law at the New York University School of Law
Samuel Issacharoff is the Reiss Professor of Constitutional Law at New York University School of Law. His research deals with issues in civil procedure (especially complex litigation and class actions), law and economics, constitutional law, particularly with regard to voting rights and electoral systems, and employment law He is one of the pioneers in the law of the political process and one of the co-authors of the seminal Law of Democracy casebook, as well as the 2015 monograph, Fragile Democracies. His work on procedure includes serving as the Reporter for the Project on Aggregate Litigation of the American Law Institute. Among Professor Issacharoff’s litigation activities, he served as the lead appellate lawyer for the plaintiff class in the NFL Concussion litigation.
Professor Issacharoff is a 1983 graduate of the Yale Law School. After clerking , he spent the early part of his career as a voting rights lawyer. He then began his teaching career at the University of Texas in 1989, where he held the Joseph D. Jamail Centennial Chair in Law. In 1999, he moved to Columbia Law School, where he was the Harold R. Medina Professor of Procedural Jurisprudence, before joining the NYU faculty in 2005. Professor Issacharoff is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Panel 4 | Mergers and Acquisitions: Current Issues
Miguel Tornovsky
Partner at Pinheiro Neto Advogados
Corporate Law Professor at Insper
Miguel Tornovsky joined the São Paulo office of Pinheiro Neto in 2002. He practices in the firm’s corporate area with a focus on mergers and acquisitions, private equity investments and capital markets. Mr Tornovsky has a law degree from the Pontifícia Universidade Católica of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio) (1996) and an LL.M. from Columbia Law School (2000), and is admitted to practice in Brazil (1997) and in NY (2002). He worked as a foreign associate of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton in New York (2000–2002). He is also a professor of corporations law in the LL.M. program of Insper – Instituto de Ensino e Pesquisa in São Paulo. Miguel is fluent in Portuguese, English, Spanish and proficient in French.
Fernando Ziziotti
Senior Vice President, Brookfield Infrastructure Group
Fernando Ziziotti is a Senior Vice President at Brookfield Asset Management, in charge of the legal aspects of M&A transactions and management of portfolio companies in the infrastructure sector in Latin America, including through participation at the Board and advisory committees. Fernando has more than 15 years of experience in M&A, corporate governance and project finance. Before joining Brookfield, he worked at Pinheiro Neto Advogados in São Paulo and Debevoise & Plimpton in New York. Fernando has a master’s degree (LL.M.) from Stanford Law School and a law degree from Universidade de São Paulo (USP).
Aloysio Meirelles de Miranda Filho
Partner at Ulhôa Canto Advogados
Aloysio Meirelles de Miranda Filho joined Ulhôa Canto in 1984 and became a partner in 1989. He graduated from Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro – UERJ in 1984 and is a specialist in corporate, tax and regulatory law, particularly mergers & acquisitions, corporate reorganizations and equity holding in Brazil and abroad.
He is admitted to the Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo Chapters of the Brazilian Bar Association. He is also a member of the Associação Brasileira de Direito Financeiro – ABDF and of the International Fiscal Association – IFA.
Gabriel Silva
Partner at Linklaters
Gabriel is a partner at Linklaters and has broad experience advising a global client base of leading corporations and financial sponsors on complex, cross-border M&A, private equity and joint venture transactions involving Latin America (in particular, in Brazil). He also has experience in capital markets and banking transactions, acting both for financial institutions and corporate issuers. Gabriel is qualified as an attorney under New York and Brazilian laws, and has been recognized as leading practitioner by Chambers and Partners, Legal 500, IFLR and Super Lawyers. He received a LL.M. degree from Columbia Law School, and is fluent in English, Portuguese and Spanish.
Nicholas Walter
Associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz
Nicholas Walter is an associate in the Litigation Department of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz.
Mr. Walter received a B.A. in Classics with first-class honors from the University of Oxford in 2004. He was the von Clemm Fellow at Harvard University in 2004–05. He received his J.D. from Yale Law School in 2012, where he was executive editor of the Yale Law Journal and a board member of the Morris Tyler Moot Court of Appeals. Mr. Walter clerked for the Honorable Leo E. Strine, Jr., on the Delaware Court of Chancery in 2012–2013 and for the Honorable Richard R. Clifton on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in 2013–14.
Mr. Walter maintains an active pro bono practice and sits on the Stewardship Committee of St. Michael’s Episcopal Church on the Upper West Side.