Rui Patrício

Rui Patrício joined Morais Leitão in 1994 and became Partner in 2005. He is the Chairman of the firm's General Meeting, since 2021, and prior to that was Member of its Board of Directors from 2008 to 2021. He coordinated several professional groups within the firm since 2004, and cocoordinated the  Criminal, Regulatory Offences and Compliance department between 2020 and 2024.

He is one of the firm’s most experienced lawyers in the area of litigation, having developed the area of criminal and regulatory offences litigation. He also has extensive activity in the area of compliance, integrity, investigation, civil litigation and national arbitration.

The development of the criminal, regulatory offences and compliance area at Morais Leitão has been accompanied by a solid career in academia. Between 1994 and 2006, Rui Patrício taught at the Lisbon University School of Law subjects in the civil law areas and, moreover, in the criminal area. Between 2007 and 2013 at Nova Law School, he taught in the Undergraduate degree course, as Visiting Professor, returning in 2020 as Visiting Professor, now in the Master's degree course.

He frequently is invited to speak at seminars and conferences and also lectures in Master's and Post-graduate courses, predominantly on criminal, procedural and regulatory offences issues.

Furthermore, Rui Patrício is a published author and co-author of law books and articles, writing for several national newspapers. He co-edited the Portuguese Bar’s magazine in 2018 and 2019.  

He was a member of the Judiciary Superior Council between May 2009 and November 2011, and a member of the Corruption Prevention Council from April 2017 up to January 2020. He was Member of the Board of the Modern and Contemporary Art Foundation - Berardo Collection by appointment of the Ministry of Culture from September 2019 until April 2023. In April 2023, he was appointed by the Portuguese government as a substitute member of the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe. Currently he is member of the OPCR’s executive board (Observatório Português de Compliance e Regulatório). He also co-coordinates BeNAC - Barómetro da Aplicação da Estratégia Nacional Anticorrupção (Observatório Permanente da Justiça – Centro de Estudos Sociais da Universidade de Coimbra), since May 2021, among other positions and functions.

Rui Patrício has been co-coordinator of the Miguel Galvão Teles Institute since its establishment in 2016.