João Morais Leitão

Over almost 50 years, João Morais Leitão was a lawyer with an enormous sense of civic duty. A tireless defender of the interests of his constituents, he advocated a modern, sophisticated law adapted to the demands of the Portuguese economy, which was developing rapidly at the end of the 80s and 90s.

A founding partner of Morais Leitão, J. Galvão Teles & Associados, in 1993, and chairman of its Board of Directors until 2003, a firm which merged with Miguel Galvão Teles, João Soares da Silva & Associados, he was one of the first to set up a law firm in Portugal, after they became authorised in 1979.  With a special talent for management and a unique strategic vision, centred on an unshakable institutional sense, a notable skill for organisation and for sharing with the other partners, he was crucial for the institutionalisation of the Firm. He had a dream of creating a law firm of great lawyers. He planned it, laid the foundations and helped it to build and grow.

He was particularly sensitive to the openness and internationalisation of Portuguese law. He integrated the Firm into Lex Mundi, the most important international alliance of independent law firms, certain that the firm he had founded would be able to meet the highest international standards.

He was also the founder of the political party CDS – Centro Democrático Social, today CDS/Partido Popular, and a member of two governments. He took charge of the Social Affairs in the VI Constitutional Government and of the Finance and Planning portfolios in the VII Constitutional Government. In January 2006, shortly before his death, he received the Portuguese honorific title Grã-Cruz da Ordem do Infante D. Henrique.

João Morais Leitão was born in Covilhã in 1938. He graduated from the Law School of the University of Lisbon and was admitted to the Portuguese Bar Association in 1962. He was first Vice-Chairman of the General Council of the Bar Association between 1990 and 1992 and a member of its Superior Council between 1996 and 1998. 

He strongly marked different sectors of economic activity: banking, insurance, social affairs and finance. In the words of José Manuel Galvão Teles, his partner throughout his professional life, “A great and brilliant lawyer. Completely unlike any other: knowledgeable about the law; a bar lawyer; a legal consultant to companies and businesses; a manager of companies.”

At Morais Leitão, he established principles that still guide its mission today: a commitment to high-quality work, a commitment to social responsibility and to seriousness in legal practice.