Francisco Carey: "Foreign firms have great confidence in working with local firms in Chile"

Leaders League. What is Carey’s history?

Francisco Carey. Our firm was created more than 100 years ago.  It began growing in the ‘70s as a recognized corporate and finance firm. At the end of the ‘80s, the Carey family firm decided to transform into a firm based on meritocracy, and where all the lawyers had the possibility of becoming partners.   We now function like various international firms, where every partner has a vote. For the promotion of lawyers we have a secret voting system, but it’s required that the candidate for partnership has a sponsor among the partners.

Leaders League. How did a firm whose most important practices are corporate and finance become one of the best IP firms?

F. C. Actually, the IP department is the third in importance in terms of turnover, behind corporate and finance. For a long time Carey was a firm recognized in Intellectual Property matters due to its interventions in litigation, but it was missing the registration part. 2009 marked an important change in our department. Carey absorbed the traditional firm Estudio Harnecker, one of the most recognized Chilean IP firms dealing also with trademarks and patents. Having acquired the firm we had access to a series of professionals and prestigious international clients, the sum of which we managed to conserve almost entirely.

Leaders League. What are some particulars of Carey and its IP department?

F. C. To be one of the most recognized offices in Chile we think it is quality of work that the clients expect. The quality of our lawyers is a characteristic which we consider intrinsic to having been recognized as one of the best offices. Where we consider ourselves different than our competitors is in the type of accompaniments we provide our clients. Our office strives to know and understand the business and needs of clients, and to offer proactive services. Another point of differentiation is our investment in technology.  We have a very robust system that lets us manage, advise, and send alerts and reports to the clients in an efficient manner. 

Insofar as the IP department, without a doubt the number of lawyers and specialized professionals in patents is a point of differentiation in the Chilean market. We have between 85 and 90 people in this department, where 15 are patent specialists, triple the number found in our competitors. This team has allowed us to be number one in Chile in patent applications, as in 2014 we filed 800. Other important characteristics of our department are that not only are we specialists in brands and patents but also in themes of labeling and product liability, licensing, counterfeiting, and life sciences.  We define ourselves as a full-service firm in terms of IP.

Leaders League. What have been the major achievements of the IP department over the last two years?

F. C. We’ve always considered ourselves a vanguard studio and the achievements of the department over the last years go hand-in-hand with this. Almost two years ago we decided to invest in hiring a Spanish attorney specialized in personal data protection. Today we have built a team which permits us to assess preventative measures for our clients. The law that governs such things should come out in Chile before the end of the year, and our department will be prepared to accompany clients in all compliance issues to what the new law implies. In this way we have actively participated in the elaboration of the law draft which was primarily inspired by Spanish law.

Another of the important achievements in our department is the putting in motion of a technological platform for the processing of trademarks. Having automated part of the process, trademarks are realized today with greater efficiency, enabling us to provide a quality service at a competitive cost.

Leaders League. How would you explain that even though the Chilean market is open to foreigners there are not a lot of international firms?

F. C. Effectively the Chilean market is open to foreign firms but there are few, and only as of late. This is the case, for example, of the Spanish firms Garrigues and Uria. From my point of view one of the major roadblocks to larger international offices installing themselves here is that the legal consultancy in Chile is very sophisticated. The national offices of renown are strengthened by offering services of the highest standards of quality. In this respect, foreign firms have great confidence in working with us without feeling the necessity of anchoring themselves locally. Today everything has to do with opportunities, so it is clear if there are more international firms in Mexico or Colombia it’s also because the markets are bigger and therefore there are more opportunities for them. In whichever case, I think it’s a matter of time. In the meantime we find ourselves confronted with greater competition due to the arrival of foreign firms, and we must prepare ourselves for them.       

J. S.

Read more insight regarding international legal services markets in our next International Report of Top 100 Law Firms. Publication in September 2015.