Gabriel Tolentino Law Office
Gabriel Tolentino · Brazilian Bar OAB/MG 89.986
Business, labour, civil and criminal law in Brazil, and Italian and Portuguese citizenship by descent. Admitted to the Brazilian Bar in 2010, trilingual, with support from offices in Portugal and Italy.
How I work
Companies and individuals arrive here for different reasons, and the work is different in each case. Worth knowing which side you are on before you get in touch.
For companies
I defend companies before the Brazilian labour courts, and I work upstream of that: contract review, internal policy, hiring and dismissal routines. Preventive work addresses the risk while it is still a document, and not a claim.
Business, labour and contractsFor individuals
If a great-grandparent of yours was Italian or Portuguese, there is a documented path to citizenship, and it runs through certificates that are almost always on the other side of the ocean. I handle the genealogy, the paperwork and the international law involved, with support from offices in Portugal and Italy.
How the European support worksPractice areas
Generalist does not mean shallow. It means the case is read whole before it becomes a filing, and that a company problem is rarely only a labour problem.
01
Ongoing counsel focused on what prevents litigation: contracts, internal routine and risk decisions.
02
Defending employers at every level, plus preventive work on hiring, working hours and termination.
03
Italian and Portuguese recognition by descent: the family line, certificates abroad and the process.
04
Foreign documents, sworn translation, apostille and coordination with Portugal and Italy.
05
Drafting, analysis and review. The right contract is the one nobody argues about later.
06
Purchase and sale, leases, title regularisation, and possession and ownership disputes.
07
Improper charges, banking fraud, defective goods and wrongful credit listings.
08
Damages, disputes between individuals and companies, and mediation when a settlement beats a judgment.
09
Technical defence at every stage and monitoring of investigations.
The route
Citizenship cases stall over a document that is not in Brazil. Having someone walk the paperwork on the other side resolves the step that delays them most: obtaining a certificate from a foreign registry.
Office · Minas Gerais, Brazil
Where the case starts and where the filings are written. In person and by video for the region and inland Minas Gerais.
Point of support · Portugal
Support for Portuguese citizenship, records at the conservatória, and residence and document matters.
Point of support · Italy
Support for Italian citizenship and for retrieving records at the comune, which is where most cases get stuck.
About
The path explains the practice: someone who spent years interpreting hearings in another language learns to hear the case before answering, and someone who taught for three decades learns to explain without jargon. That is what carries the international work today.
1990s
Began teaching English at 14, after studying the language from the age of 6. At 16 he studied at Cambridge, England. Started law school at 17.
2001
Law degree from UNIFEMM, in Sete Lagoas, without giving up teaching. The classroom is what built the courtroom delivery.
2002 · 2007
Five years in Danbury, Connecticut. Member of the American Translators Association and official interpreter at hearings. At Alan Berry & Associates, he worked on immigration, real estate, insurance and consumer matters.
2007
Returned to Brazil and took a postgraduate degree in Diplomacy, covering geopolitics, economics and international relations.
2010
Enrolled in the Brazilian Bar under OAB/MG 89.986 and moved to full-time practice. Alongside it, he taught English to executives at Iveco, Ambev and FPT.
2025
Incorporation of Gabriel Tolentino Sociedade Individual de Advocacia, and the setup of support in Portugal and Italy for genealogy and international law.
Today
Member of the professional prerogatives committee of the Sete Lagoas Bar Association, 46th subsection.
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