Biography
Miriam is a Brazilian lawyer-in-residence with experience in project development, permitting, contaminated sites, and transactional environmental law.
She is a Brazilian native, licensed in Brazil, with twenty years of experience in a wide range of complex environmental matters, from due diligence pre-acquisition to strategic legal support in the environmental and construction permitting of major infrastructure projects in Brazil. Miriam also advises clients on legal issues related to contaminated sites, risk management, and contractual allocation of environmental liabilities in domestic and cross-border transactions.
Miriam's experience includes representing Fortune 500 companies in their interests and investments in Brazil, from risk assessment to permitting and post-acquisition compliance advice, advising a mining company during the first months post a dam collapse accident with major environmental repercussions; coordinating the legal response to a week-long fire that burned through a fuel and chemicals storage facility near the Port of Santos, and managing administrative, criminal, and toxic tort litigation related to deactivated crop protection chemical’s facilities from the Brazilian subsidiary of Anglo-Dutch Royal Dutch Shell Plc in São Paulo.
Before joining B&D, Miriam was a partner at BMA, a private law firm in Brazil, where she led the environmental practice, serving Latin American, European, and US-based companies with business in Brazil. Prior to that, she worked for six years as an in-house legal manager with the Brazilian subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell Plc in Rio de Janeiro, where she coordinated environmental legal services and provided transactional and crisis legal advice. In her in-house capacity, Miriam served as the lead environmental attorney supporting the formation of Raízen Energia S.A., a JV between Royal Dutch Shell and Brazilian biofuel major Cosan S.A., the third-largest Brazilian energy company by revenue and the fifth largest in Brazil.
Miriam graduated from the Pace Law School LLM program with a degree in Comparative Legal Studies, focusing on environmental law. She also holds an MBA in Environmental Management from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (COPPE/UFRJ). Miriam won the 2015 “Client Choice Award” from the International Law Office and is ranked by Latinvex, Chambers Latin America, Latin Lawyer, and Legal 500.
Education
- Rio de Janeiro Catholic University (LL.B., 2002)
- Rio de Janeiro Federal University (M.B.A., 2003)
- Environmental Management
- Pace University (LL.M., 2018)
- Comparative Legal Studies with a focus on Environmental Law
Bar Admissions
Honors & Awards
- 2015 International Law Office "Client Choice Award" in the Environment & Climate Change category
- Chambers and Partners – Latin America, 2013-2016
- The Legal 500, 2013-2016
- Latinvex, 2021
Languages
- English
- Portuguese
- French
- Spanish