Maria Gabriel Alaña Castro represents Mexican and foreign companies, banks and investor groups with respect to corporate, real estate, financial and banking matters. Ms. Alaña represents Mexican and foreign real estate developers of residential, commercial and tourism developments including hotels and timeshare resorts. She also counsels clients in matters relating to the development, implementation and advice on corporate and financial structures.
Before joining the firm in 2003, Ms. Alaña had gained seven years of broad legal experience. During law school, Ms. Alaña worked for the law firms Martinez y Vega, S.C. and Kaye y Rodriguez Botello, S.C. focusing on commercial litigation matters. For the first three years after graduation from law school, she was a member of the legal department of BBVA Bancomer, one of the largest banking companies in Mexico where she focused on drafting and negotiating commercial loan agreements, implementing loan restructures, and conducting due diligence of corporate borrowers. Ms. Alaña advised the BBVA Bancomer Brokerage House in drafting the master form contract for its retail brokerage business and in 1999, for BBVA Bancomer, she co-authored Banking Agreements, a first-of-its-kind in-house manual of standards and drafting techniques for bank lawyers.
After taking a year off from work in 2000 to obtain a masters of law degree in the U.S., Ms. Alaña served as an associate in the law firm of Jáuregui, Navarrete, Nader y Rojas concentrating on real estate, corporate and securities law by drafting, negotiating and implementing construction agreements, lease and sublease agreements and complex conveyance agreements including trusts, as well as, advising on the legal aspects of restructuring of Mexican public companies.
Ms. Alaña is bilingual (Spanish and English). In addition to her other education, in 1998, Ms. Alaña participated in the two-month program, The American Legal System, offered at the University of Delaware, School of Law.