GABRIELA OURIVIO ASSMAR

Senior Fellow – Brazil

Gabriela Ourivio Assmar is a full-time mediator with over twenty years of experience and a recognized pioneer in the development of conflict resolution techniques in Brazil.

About Gabriela Ourivio Assmar

Gabriela Ourivio Assmar is a full-time mediator with over twenty years of experience and a recognized pioneer in the development of the mediation market in Brazil. She has mediated over several hundred disputes involving a wide variety of issues, including: commercial, corporate, multi-stakeholder (social and environmental), family, criminal and community conflicts within the Rio de Janeiro court system and in private practice, in Brazil and abroad.

Ms. Assmar lectures and teaches mediation at numerous institutions in Brazil and abroad. She was a mediation instructor for the National Council of Justice and one of the founders of the mediation commission of the Rio de Janeiro State Bar. She also served as co-author of the Brazilian Mediation Law (Law 13.140/2015).

Ms. Assmar has further promoted mediation in Brazil through conflict resolution programs for children in schools located in the most violent areas of Rio de Janeiro. She served as founder and executive director of the Brazilian Center for Partners for Democratic Change International (Parceiros Brasil – Centro de Processos Colaborativos) and founded the private mediation services provider ProAcordo – Mediação de Conflitos Empresariais. She also founded Via Concordia, an innovative incubator of systemic conflict resolution techniques.

Litigation Practice

Gabriela Assmar began her career as a transactional lawyer, both as in-house and as outside counsel. She has been head of legal departments, public affairs director, and ombudsman at multinationals, responsible for multidisciplinary teams designing business strategies in telecommunications, investment banking, insurance, and industrial sectors.

Ms. Assmar’s litigation practice covered commercial, real estate, tax, contract, and civil law across domains, such as:

Commercial contracts, including international contracts
Property and Intellectual Property disputes
Tax planning and the consequential need to seek redefinitions of tax levies
Urban status characterization and its impacts on the viability of real estate developments
Insurance law
Consumer protection
Environmental protection and public interest litigations

Mediation Practice

Gabriela Assmar has been a full-time mediator since 2007. She is a senior mediator at the Rio de Janeiro State Court and one of the few mediators for commercial disputes at the Court. In private practice, she serves as a mediator, mediation/negotiation trainer, coach (in conflict situations), systems designer, and ombudsman. Her diverse mediation experience includes cases in the areas of:

Property – real estate, joint ventures, including intellectual property
Contracts – commercial contracts, sub-contracts, vendor disputes, franchising
Family disputes- family business disputes, family partition, wills, and other settlements
School conflicts – bullying
Matrimonial – divorce, child custody, and division of assets
Commercial – founder disputes, liabilities, partnerships, cross border commercial disputes, consumer disputes, contract remodeling for tax planning purposes, risk allocation
Insurance coverage
Corporate disputes – shareholder issues, management internal disputes
Workplace/Labor-management disputes such as harassment allegations
Company/community (multi-stakeholders) – social and environmental impact management
Post consumption duties among competitors
Corporate Governance/Ethics

ADR Achievements and Training

As one of the three founders of the pioneer Mediation Commission at the Brazilian Bar Association – Rio de Janeiro Chapter, Gabriela Assmar implemented the mediation practice for lawyers and non-lawyers in 2008, and her project won the prestigious Innovare Award in 2009. The Innovare Award recognizes relevant innovations in legal practice and is sponsored by the Brazilian Supreme Court, the National Council of Justice, and other institutions of similar importance in the Brazilian Legal field.

Ms. Assmar was a Mediation Counsel of the Federal Bar Association.
Awarded a Weinstein JAMS International Fellowship (2011)
Member of the international panel of CPR mediators
Member of the Global Mediation Panel serving the Office of the Ombudsman for United Nations Funds and Programmes
Nominated to “The International Who’s Who Legal” of Commercial Mediation since 2012, including Best Lawyer (2014)
One of the few Brazilians certified by the International Ombudsman Association
Ms. Assmar was first trained as a mediator at the Harlem Justice Center, New York, in 1999. At the same period, she worked as a foreign associate at a New York Law Firm.
Ms. Assmar has undergone extensive advanced mediation training at Harvard Law School, JAMS (New York and San Francisco), ADR Group (UK), Mediation Training Institute International, among others.
As the ombudsman for Petros, the pension fund of Petrobras Group, she created and coordinated the Ethics Committee and eliminated the backlog of ethics investigations and aggravated complaints
She has been appointed as the mediator for the International Labour Organization with a mandate to begin in October 2022

ADR Teaching and Mentoring

Has taught mediation since 2000 and is now well-known for developing and teaching systemic conflict resolution
Mentors recently trained mediators throughout Brazil and abroad, in more than one hundred institutions, in addition to in-company trainings

Publications and Education

Publications

Co-author in the following publications:

ZANETI Jr, Hermes; CABRAL, Trícia Navarro. Justiça Multiportas – Mediação, Conciliação, Arbitragem e outros meios de solução adequada de conflitos. Coleção Grandes Temas do Novo CPC – 9. Bahia: Ed. JusPODIVM, (2017).

HALE, Durval; DALLA, Humberto; CABRAL, Trícia Navarro. O Marco Legal da Mediação no Brasil – Comentários à Lei No. 13.140 de 26 de junho de 2015. São Paulo: Ed. Atlas, (2015).

SCHONEWILLE, Manon; SCHONEWILLE, Fred. The Variegated landscapes of MEDIATION – A comparative study of mediation regulation and practices in Europe and the World. The Netherlands. The Hague: Ed. Eleven, (2014).

MARCONDES, Fernando. Direito da Construção – Estudo sobre as várias áreas do Direito aplicadas ao Mercado da Construção. São Paulo: Ed. PINI (2014).

ALMEIDA, Rafael Alves de; SILVA, Tania Almeida; CRESPO, Mariana H. Tribunal Multiportas – Investindo no Capital Social para maximizar o sistema de solução de conflitos no Brasil. Rio de Janeiro: Ed. FGV (2012).

SOARES, Fabio Lopes. Direito Empresarial e do Consumidor – Fundamentos e Reflexões para o Equilíbrio entre Empresas e Consumidores. São Paulo: Ed Lumen Juris (2019).

Educational Qualifications

Graduated in Law in Brazil (1992)
LL.M. from New York University School of Law (1999)
MBA at Fundação Dom Cabral (2005)
Mediation Degree from Institut Universitaire Kurt Bösch, a Swiss institute at its Buenos Aires, Argentina chapter (2008)
Consulting Board Member, CELINT (2022)