About

The Mexican in-house legal team at MIRA, an international real estate development company, is made of five expert lawyers adept at real estate deals, corporate governance and all related legal matters. Led by the highly experienced vice-president, José Luis Soberanes T., it includes the director of legal for the Puerto Cancún project, two associates working nationwide, a junior lawyer and a legal clerk. The team is overseen centrally but divides based upon its management of different projects, such as the Puerto Cancún project and others in its funds. The legal department is also currently overseeing projects within disposition, development and origination phases such as projects in Queretaro, Masaryk, and Polanco in Mexico City. Soberanes highlights that, ‘the legal department, without losing its role as legal gatekeeper, has been transforming into a business partner of the company, making more efficient processes, better time responses and upgrading its legal services’. The team has increased its corporate governance measures including anti-money laundering and bribery compliance. The team and its leader Soberanes have excelled in this regard and in the words of a nominator, ‘Jose Luis is as pragmatic as it gets and has a deep understanding of Mexican law. He gains knowledge of the issues in order to determine whether they are relevant in the broader context. If he determines that such an issue is relevant, then he is (again) pragmatic as to the mitigants and next steps’.