NEXT Legal is a boutique Corporate and Real Estate law firm based in Miami with a focus on Startups and Venture Capital. The members of the team began their careers at top law firms in the United States, Latin America and Europe. The firm offers the experienced attorneys, with transparent pricing and nurtures close relationships with their clients.
STARTUP LAW & VENTURE CAPITAL CULTURE
NEXT Legal has a very strong practice of venture capital and is well known for providing high-quality and efficient legal services to non-U.S. clients with legal needs in the United States. “We’ve been doing VC in Miami and Latin America for many years,” says Sofía Yagüe, Partner at NEXT. “Unlike other law firms, we specialize in transactions with a cross-border component.”
A majority of the firm’s clients in the VC space are foreign startups, investors and funds, primarily from Latin America and Europe, raising funds or making investments in the United States. “We not only help our startup clients obtain private equity or financings in the United States,” says Pieter A. Weyts, Partner at NEXT, “but we also help them scale to a bigger level and make their business more international and with access to the U.S. markets.”
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE MIAMI AND LATIN AMERICAN TECH ECOSYSTEMS
Jason Stark, who manages the firms’ VC practice together with Sofía Yagüe, says the NEXT Legal team loves to contribute to the Miami startup ecosystem and takes pride in being continuously involved in conferences and programs and collaborating with “Some the most well-known institutions in Miami (including 500 startups, CIC Miami, The Idea Center at Miami Dade College, and many others).”
Looking forward to the next five years, Yagüe believes that the Latin American VC space will be tremendously active, since there are huge opportunities in those markets that U.S. investors are just starting to learn about, especially since Softbank’s recent investment announcements. And NEXT Legal is perfectly positioned to work on many of those deals. “In several countries in Latin America we are already involved in most of the high-profile transactions in the VC area,” says Yagüe. “That puts us in an excellent position for the next wave of transactions that we expect to happen in the next few years.”
CROSS-BORDER EXPERIENCE AND PERSONALIZED SERVICES
Miami is at the crossroads for doing business with Latin America and Europe and NEXT Legal has become the go-to law firm for many non-U.S. entrepreneurs and investors who prefer to work with a lawyer who understands the particularities of their home countries. The NEXT Legal team is very international with a group of attorneys from five different countries who can serve their clients in seven different languages. Four of the firm’s lawyers also hold non-U.S. law degrees from Chile, Colombia, Spain and Belgium.
“We help clients bridge the gap between their home countries and the U.S.,” says Yagüe. “Our lawyers’ familiarity and knowledge of the legal systems in many other countries in Latin America and Europe, and the diverse background of our legal team, help us be more effective in advising our clients on complex cross-border transactions,” says Pieter A. Weyts. But what really defines our firm, says Jason Stark, is “our level of responsiveness and attention. Our clients know they can reach us quickly, and we will offer pragmatic solutions to their legal needs.”
Chris Castro, the firm’s Real Estate partner, Pieter A. Weyts, Jason Stark, and Sofía Yagüe, the firm’s three corporate partners, started the law firm last year, after working together as a team for almost five years. All of the partners practiced for several years at top U.S. law firms including Greenberg Traurig LP, Davis Polk & Wardwell and O’Melveny & Myers LLP, in Miami and New York.
Pieter A. Weyts explains how they found their niche. In Miami, he says, there are basically two types of law firms handling corporate and real estate matters. On the one hand, you have the big law firms, which typically serve big corporations or financial institutions handling transactions that often require a team of at least a dozen people in different specialties. On the other hand, you have the solo practitioners and small law firms that may not always offer the same level of specialization or expertise.
Our niche is precisely between these two categories, where individuals, small and mid-size companies and family offices are seeking a more personalized service by a smaller but dedicated group of lawyers that have the capabilities and sophistication to handle a wide variety of matters, big and small. “What sets us apart from the bigger firms are the close, dependable client relationships we pride ourselves on,” says Weyts. “Because of the close relationship with our clients, our small team of highly qualified and talented attorneys often fulfill a role similar to in-house counsel.”
