Boyd Student Shadows Tax and Labor Attorney in Brazil

Second-year William S. Boyd School of Law student Jaime Serrano spent his winter break learning tax law in Brazil.

To find an internship that met his specific needs – featuring law classes taught in Portuguese in Brazil and to gain some real-world experience – Jaime reached out to the contacts he had made while working in international trade and business prior to law school.  Serrano contacted his Japanese Brazilian friend, who is a young politician in Brazil, to connect him with an attorney to shadow during break. Serrano offered to pay his own way to work with a Brazilian lawyer.

Serrano left three days after his last final of the fall semester and immediately began work for tax and labor attorney Klayton Munehiro Furuguem in São Paulo, Brazil. Serrano said it was an unbelievable experience.

“I was with him almost constantly,” Serrano said. “I was literally shadowing him in every meeting.”

Furuguem is the head of a small boutique firm, Matsuka Advogados Associados, which works with businesses that do work in Brazil, specifically focusing on tax law. Brazilian tax law for corporate entities is more complex and stringent than U.S. tax treatment, Serrano said. “He couldn’t have been a better person for me,” Serrano said.

Furuguem dealt with a lot of business owners trying to fix mistakes or correctly categorize themselves under the tax code. Serrano said similar to how a good tort lawyer in the United States might bring in a lot of business, a tax lawyer in Brazil can make a lot of money. “It’s a booming economy in Brazil,” Serrano said. “Brazil is half the economy of Latin America. It’s an up-an-coming country.”

After seeing first-hand the difficulties of the tax code, Serrano said he would do his research if he ever considered starting a business in Brazil.

“I learned there’s no way you want to go in there without a good tax lawyer,” he said. The experience also helped Serrano, who already speaks Spanish, perfect his Portuguese. In turn, Serrano helped Furuguem improve his English.

“(Furuguem) would speak in English, I would speak back in Portuguese,” Serrano said. Serrano said he thinks the ability to speak both Spanish and Portuguese, coupled with his experience working in South America, will help him when looking for a job at a firm after law school. Working in a Spanish-speaking firm in Latin America did not seem like a productive use of his break, Serrano said. Serrano’s primary legal interests are immigration, tax and international law.

Furuguem and Serrano agreed to try to work together in some way in the future, whether it is through immigration seminars or some other means.

“I want to do this again next year,” Serrano said.

Most of all, Serrano said it reinforced for him the power of networking.

“The importance of maintaining your contacts is invaluable,” he said.