Jairo C. Lamatina is an experienced corporate, securities and M&A attorney with more than a decade of practice at leading international law firms. Jairo’s practice has included advising issuers, underwriters, and investors on U.S. SEC-registered offerings, Rule 144A/Regulation S debt and equity issuances, liability management transactions, cross-border mergers and acquisitions, and complex debt restructurings. He is admitted to practice law in New York.
Jairo received his J.D. from Vanderbilt University Law School in 2013, where he was President of La Alianza (Latin American Law Students Association) and Vice-President of the International Law Society. He earned his B.A. in Economics and B.A. in International Affairs, cum laude with Special Honors, from The George Washington University in 2008.
After law school, Jairo practiced corporate law in New York at Sullivan & Cromwell, before relocating to São Paulo with Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, where he advised on equity and debt offerings, dual-listed IPOs, and debt restructurings. He later joined Latham & Watkins and subsequently Linklaters in Singapore, where he advised on capital markets and liability management transactions throughout Asia. He returned to Skadden in Brazil to focus on Latin American M&A and securities work. His experience spans multiple industries, with transactions across the Americas, Europe, and Asia ranging from multibillion-dollar sovereign bond offerings for Latin American and Asian governments to landmark IPOs in India and Brazil, as well as SPAC/de-SPAC transactions.
In addition to his transactional practice, Jairo founded Defendy, a legal technology startup in Brazil that developed an AI-driven client-lawyer matching platform. Under his leadership, the platform grew to hundreds of monthly consultations and 250+ paying lawyers, earning media attention and recognition from some of Brazil’s leading business and legal institutions.
Fluent in English, Portuguese, and Spanish (with limited knowledge of Bahasa Indonesia), Jairo has lived and worked as an attorney in New York, São Paulo and Singapore. He brings a global perspective, deep transactional expertise, and an entrepreneurial mindset to his legal practice.