Latin American Wealth Spurs Boom for Miami Lawyers

Miami’s expanding role as a hub for Latin American wealth is generating significant work for lawyers across a host of specialties.

Political uncertainty in the region tends to drive waves of capital into the United States for safe-keeping. Increasingly, wealthy Latin Americans and their financial advisers are also planting roots in South Florida. That migration often involves complex tax and pre-immigration planning, as well as other legal advice.

“We’re all driven by the client needs, and a lot of the clients are saying, ‘Do me a favor and meet me in Miami,'” said Michael Silva, head of the Miami Tax practice and co-head of the Latin America practice at McDermott Will & Emery.

Silva focuses his practice on international tax law, with an emphasis on U.S. investment structures, cross-border transactions, tax treaty planning and U.S. activities of foreign banks. He has significant experience forming investment funds and advising family offices.

Silva notes that the wealthiest families from Latin America tend to have stronger ties to Miami than to financial centers like New York.

That nexus, in turn, has stoked steady and strong investment flows from Latin America that have turned Miami into a premier destination for the global wealth management industry. Banks like UBS have been relocating top talent to Miami from other cities in recent years, while a slew of Latin American financial institutions have set up shop in the Magic City to keep pace with their clients.

Ultra-wealthy Latin Americans are also establishing family offices in South Florida to manage their investments and other affairs. This requires registrations and filings with U.S. regulators. Those family offices then invest in private equity and other deals, stirring yet more work for Miami-based lawyers.

“High net worth clients look to Miami as a safer, more predictable place to invest,” said Erika Litvak, a Miami-based shareholder at Greenberg Traurig who is originally from Argentina. Litvak specializes in tax matters, assisting international clients with estate planning, structuring investments in the U.S. and other issues that relate to private client work.

Though some wealthy Latin American clients might opt to live in U.S. states like California or Colorado, Litvak said that many of them still gravitate to Miami for legal work around wealth management.

That gravitation is due in part to the large base of Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking lawyers who work on an ongoing basis with clients from Latin America. Some of these lawyers also spent their formative years in the region, giving them a deeper understanding of cultural nuances.

“We do this 24-7, this is our bread and butter,” said Litvak, adding that her Spanish accent “is not for marketing purposes.”

Brickell Booms

Demand for prime office space in the Brickell area of downtown Miami has soared since the pandemic, with a significant portion of that demand coming from companies with ties to Latin America.

Prices have also skyrocketed. The average asking rate for office space in Miami hit a record high of $55.79 per square foot in September, according to data from real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield. That compares with $72.98 per square foot in Manhattan.

In July, a Brazilian bank called Banco Master snapped up the last available space in a Miami office tower—830 Brickell—that has become a symbol of the city’s burgeoning financial sector.

“You have financial institutions that are following those customers,” said Marina Olman-Pal, the Miami-based co-chair of Greenberg Traurig’s financial regulatory & compliance practice.

Olman-Pal, who is also from Argentina, helped French investment bank BNP Paribas open its global markets office in Miami. BNP Paribas launched that office in late 2023 to serve clients throughout the Americas.

Full-service

Lawyers who cater to wealthy Latin American clients frequently take a holistic approach to services.

That means helping clients from the region with compliance matters to smooth banking relationships, assisting them with real estate purchases, acquisitions and succession planning.

Lawyers can then parlay a trusted adviser role they develop while dealing with a family’s net worth into transactional matters for their firms.

Silva notes another trend. Members of the next generation of high-net-worth Latin Americans come to the U.S. for education, then they establish themselves as permanent residents or marry U.S. citizens. And they invest.

Like in the U.S., there’s a huge transfer of assets under way as older, wealthy generations in Latin America retire.

“That spurs a ton of work for us,” said Silva, whose ancestors were from Portugal.

This work might involve creating trust structures and other mechanisms to reduce the tax hit when assets overseas are transferred to individuals in the United States.

“All that appreciation earned on those long-standing assets when they were owned by the parents will follow into the U.S. tax system when the kids inherit, absent some sophisticated planning,” warned Silva.

Establishing themselves in the U.S. also brings benefits. Wealthy Latin Americans place more faith in U.S. institutions, and feel that setting up a trust or other legal structure in the U.S. will provide them with greater protections.

Universally, ultra-wealthy clients from Latin America also want access to U.S. dollar-denominated assets and markets, and to the more sophisticated investment options available in the U.S. versus in their home countries.