Maria Luisa Canovas

A partner in top U.S. law firms for nearly two decades Maria Luisa Canovas has been ranked for more than a decade as a leading New York lawyer for M&A in Latin America by, among others, Chambers Latin America (2023), Chambers Global (2023), The Legal 500 Latin America (2022) and Latinvex “Top 50 Female Lawyers in Latin America.”  Spain’s Expansion Jurídica recently listed her as one of the top Spanish lawyers practicing in the U.S. One of the deals she worked on last year as lead M&A counsel has been shortlisted to receive the Latin Lawyer's 2024 Deal of the Year Award and the IFLR 2024 Deal of the Year Award.

 Over the course of her career, María Luisa has worked extensively with public companies such as Sanofi, PepsiCo and News Corporation; private equity funds such as Macquarie, Hicks Muse and Playa Hotels & Resorts; and Latin-America based companies such as Betesh International and Cabcorp.  Since launching a boutique practice in 2022, María Luisa has continued to work for long-standing clients and taught several M&A courses at Columbia Law School.  She has also held visiting posts at various other academic institutions including Strathmore University (Kenya) and Universidad Panamericana (Mexico).

 In addition to advising corporate clients and world-wide teaching assignments, María Luisa has throughout her career been dedicated to pro-bono service and diversity-related matters.  At Jones Day she was the partner-in-charge of the NY office Women´s Diversity Group for more than a decade and also a member of the Firm´s Global Women´s Diversity Group.  She heads the corporate governance and nominating committee of the Board of the Queen Sophia Spanish Institute, and is a member of  Board of the US-Mexico Bar Association and of the Finance Committee of the Brooklyn Public Library.