Carlos
Acevedo
By Alicia Fazzano
South Florida attorney Carlos Acevedo’s
career is as full of intrigue as a fiction novel; that’s
why it came as no surprise when one of his cases was incorporated
in Stephen Cannell’s 2002 novel, The Viking Funeral.
According to Acevedo, the lawsuit depicted in the novel
is based on an actual case between the Colombian government,
which Acevedo and his firm currently represent, and American
tobacco manufacturers, who the Colombian government alleges
have been smuggling cigarettes into Colombia and laundering
money on the black market. The case is just another chapter
in this attorney’s self-described “fight against
commodities-based money laundering.”
Acevedo, U.S.-born with both American and Colombian heritage,
says his background has given him “a leg up on the
international scene.” Being of both heritages provides
him with a unique perspective of international affairs,
he says. “It allows me to have a vision of the world
and the U.S. position in it. I can be a bridge between the
U.S. and its partners in an increasingly unified global
stage.”
Acevedo obtained his first law degree in 1992 from the Colombian
institution Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. “From
Day One, I decided that I would be on the international
arena, being that bridge,” Acevedo says. In 1995,
he received a degree from the Washington College of Law
at American University, and by 1999 he was licensed to practice
by the New York Bar Association. Six years later, he became
a partner in the South Florida law firm of Krupnick Campbell
Malone Roselli Buser Slama Hancock McNelis Liberman &
McKee.
At Krupnick Campbell & Malone, Acevedo plays an unlikely
role in the war on drugs. The United States government has
tried to combat drug dealers at the production and distribution
levels through heavy military aid to Colombia, which is
used for spraying coca fields and domestic policing. Meanwhile,
Acevedo is hitting drug dealers at a key and potentially
more vulnerable stage of their business model—money
laundering. Litigating against companies who enable these
transactions, “is a smart way to fight the bad guys,”
explains Acevedo, who was part of a binational team that
developed the model to understand the Black Market Peso
Exchange (BMPE).
Acevedo’s dogged determination is part of what makes
him effective in the courtroom. Once he sinks his teeth
into an issue, he doesn’t let go. His take on anyone
standing in his way is, “You don’t take their
conclusions at face value. You look at the reasons why they
came to them, and then see if you can turn those reasons
in your favor.”
When he represented Colombian panela manufacturers in a
dispute over U.S. sugar import quotas, for example, he was
informed that Colombia had already met its sugar quota.
Poor panela producers who thought that they had a valid
claim to export to the U.S. found their cargo rejected by
the U.S. Customs Service. Acevedo successfully pushed to
reclassify panela, an unbleached and unrefined sweetener
made from sugar cane, as different from sugar for import
purposes.
Acevedo’s refusal to accept anything less than the
best possible results has led him to lobby Congress and
even nudge nations to sign treaties if it could help his
client.
In reflecting on his career, Acevedo recalls one piece of
advice that has proved beneficial to him throughout his
years as an attorney. “When you achieve something
that you set out to do, get out,” he says.
If he lives by his own advice, then he must have set his
standards incredibly high, because this attorney doesn’t
appear to be “getting out” anytime soon.
Corali
Lopez-Castro
By
Francisco Ramos, Jr.
any factors go into achieving any level
of success, but when Corali Lopez-Castro boils it down,
her recipe has three key ingredients that apply not just
to business, but to life.
Lopez-Castro, the president of the Florida-based Cuban American
Bar Association, or CABA, attributes her success in no small
part to the support of her partners at Kozyak Tropin &
Throckmorton, a commercial litigation and bankruptcy law
firm in Miami. Success, she says, starts with support from
those around you, something Lopez-Castro has in abundance.
“My firm is proud of my work in CABA,” she says.
“They know what I do matters and they have supported
me every step of the way.”
The second ingredient is the willingness to take risks.
Lopez-Castro says she learned from past CABA presidents,
particularly Hector Lombana, that if you want to effect
change, you have to take chances. CABA did so by pushing
for diversity on the Miami-Dade County bench years before
it was popular to talk, much less push, for diversity.
And the third ingredient is vision. To succeed, you need
goals and plans to achieve them. “Without a vision
and direction, you are not setting the agenda. You are just
reacting,” she says, adding it is important that the
goals be reasonable and realistic. “I would rather
do 10 things well than do 20 things fair.”
One of Lopez-Castro’s goals was to bring cultural
sensitivity to the bench in neighboring Broward County,
which has a burgeoning Latino population. As a result, CABA
played an integral role in ensuring all Broward judges participated
in sensitivity training to treat with respect everyone that
appears before them, whether white, black or Hispanic.
To increase the free legal services made available to the
less fortunate in South Florida, CABA moved its pro bono
project to Little Havana, where it could be closer to the
Latino community. The program differs from the various legal
service programs in that its volunteers are bilingual and
can represent those in the community who do not speak English.
Last year the project handled 150 cases. This year Lopez-Castro
hopes that the project will handle twice as many cases.
Because of all its work, CABA remains relevant 32 years
after its inception, says Lopez-Castro, who was born in
Puerto Rico and received her law degree from the University
of Miami School of Law in 1990.
Lopez-Castro is only the second woman to lead CABA, and
the first since Katherine Fernandez-Rundle, now Miami-Dade
County’s state attorney, held the post 15 years ago.
And as Lopez-Castro reflects on what is left of her term,
which ends in January, she considers herself very fortunate.
“I have a full and wonderful life,” she says.
“I have a great marriage, great kids and a great group
of partners that support what I do.”
Frank
Fernandez
By Conrad Dahlson
At home-improvement giant The Home Depot,
where millions get their hammers, saws, paint and plumbing
supplies, General Counsel Frank Fernandez spends his time
crafting one of the most efficient corporate law departments
in America.
He has built it by wasting not one shred of an intellectual
inventory stocked with the “diversity of people and
experiences I’ve had during my career.”
With study discipline inculcated by his Spanish father and
Cuban mother, followed by an even sterner discipline forged
in the U.S. Marines, Fernandez immersed himself as a CPA
in the fiscal disciplines of accounting and finance for
six years with Haskins & Sells (now Deloitte & Touche)
in New York.
Stowing that knowledge in his professional toolbox, he earned
a master’s in tax law at New York University’s
Albany Law School, and for the next 20 years in private
practice specialized in corporate, tax and securities law.
As director of the Master’s in Tax Program at SUNY
Albany, he passed on his expertise to students.
Five years ago, Fernandez got the call to join the corporate
world as VP and general counsel for The Home Depot, overseeing
the company’s legal and government affairs, risk management
and corporate security.
Innovations were soon under construction. “We’re
the most metrics-driven legal function I’m aware of,”
says Fernandez, who with his team of 60 attorneys fashioned
yardsticks to measure every operation of The Home Depot’s
legal functions.
Then Fernandez closed the circle with what he calls preventive
law. The experience gleaned from each legal action “we
feed back to The Home Depot business leaders, so they’re
better equipped to address root cause issues.” In
other words, learning from experience to avoid future problems.
Currently, Fernandez says, The Home Depot’s “expansion
into new geographies” beyond its 2,000-plus stores
in the U.S., Mexico, Puerto Rico and Canada will mean entirely
new legal systems and government relations. But Fernandez,
55, and his astute crew take it as just another lightbulb
to change.
As for giving back to the Hispanic community, Fernandez
does that chiefly through the company’s diversity
and inclusion initiatives, such as the National Hiring Partnership
with four Hispanic Association for Corporate Responsibility
organizations.
But Fernandez admits his favorite project is a much more
nuts-and-bolts enterprise: participating in Kaboom playground
builds in largely Hispanic neighborhoods, a hands-on project
since 2004.
“There’s no experience like building a playground
and seeing all the kids’ smiling faces,” he
says.
