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)

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