The use of legal fees and the possibility of reducing the annual fee are among the issues that generate divergence among the candidates running for president.
With online and mandatory voting, the election of the São Paulo section takes place this Thursday (21), from 9am to 5pm.
Candidate on the current ticket and current vice-president, Leonardo Sica considers the use of generative AI by the legal profession to be positive and sees the restriction discourse as being overcome. He advocates large-scale use, but within what he describes as the ethical limits of the relationship between lawyer and client.
“The human interaction between the lawyer and the client is still the central point of our service provision, it cannot be replaced”, says Sica.
“Proposing the restricted use of artificial intelligence for law is actually discriminatory. Big firms will use it, because they have access to these mechanisms, so we have to allow every lawyer to use it.”
Former president of the entity, Caio Augusto Silva dos Santos says he is in favor of the use of , but adopts a more restrictive tone of speech.
“[A inteligência artificial] it must be used to gain efficiency, it must simply replace bureaucratic activities, not activities involving the necessary participation, not only of feeling, but of human genius”, he states. “We cannot allow the participation of artificial intelligence to replace people .”
The division also appears among the other candidates. Alfredo Scaff, who is running for command of the entity for the second time, and Carlos Kauffmann, who has already been part of the section’s management and is now seeking to be president, position themselves in a more receptive way to the use of technology in the legal profession.
Quissi, now in his third term as head of the OAB of Carapicuíba, has an intermediate position, and Renato Ribeiro, who has never held a position in the section, rejects it.
Scaff proposes offering a course on how to use it through the Escola Superior da Advocacia. Kauffmann plans to launch a platform to allow lawyers access to it, with jurisprudence research services and assistance in drafting contracts.
Quissi supports the need for investments in digital tools for simplified management, case analysis, and argument suggestions, but emphasizes that care must be taken to avoid excessive automation that results in a loss of labor.
In turn, Renato says he is against the overt use of AI, because the technology would take services away from lawyers. “You will simply exchange a lawyer for a computer technician”, he says, who defends the development of studies on the subject.
Another topic that moves candidates is the Order’s annual fee — the value of which is almost R$1,000. The current management decreased 10% in 2023 and this year maintained the value.
When running for office in 2021, the current president, Patricia Vanzolini, said she understood it was possible to reduce the annual fee from the second year in office, but that this would depend on an analysis of the entity’s accounts.
Sica classifies the proposals to lower the annual fee as “electoral populism”, arguing that management must follow the rules of fiscal responsibility and cannot reduce revenues below expenses. “It can’t be reduced any more than it already has been in a short space of time.”
Caio’s plan says it will keep the annual fee frozen and will allow interest-free installments. It also promises an increase in the discounts currently offered to young lawyers.
In addition to the larger discounts for new entrants, Quissi says he will reduce the annual fee to something around R$700 following the review of expenses and termination of privileges. Scaff promises a reduction of the same order, 30%, and two years of exemption for new lawyers.
Renato argues that the due date for the annual fee — today at the end of January, during the Judiciary’s recess period — changes to March. Kauffmann intends to carry out an audit to assess the possibility of cuts.
The budgetary policy changed under the current administration, with an increase in expenses, which led to the entity’s annual surplus falling from R$47.6 million to R$684.4 thousand, from 2022 to 2023. The entity’s net equity, by in turn, there was a smaller variation: from R$489.7 million to R$487.4 million.
Asked about the values, OAB-SP listed a series of expenses with investment in infrastructure, with 272 works delivered and 47 in progress and 9 new constructions, in addition to the acquisition of 1,195 computers.
“The OAB-SP aims to improve the conditions for practicing law for São Paulo lawyers and efficient management is essential for this objective to be achieved”, said the Order in a note.
In 2021, the last year of the previous administration, the surplus was R$21.3 million in nominal terms, that is, without correction for inflation. Net equity ended that year at R$453.6 million.
One of the glass ceilings that has been mobilized by opposition groups against the situation is the approval of the bill in 2023, with a direct impact on the legal profession.
The opposition cites the inability of the São Paulo section of the OAB to dialogue with the different Powers.
Sica says that, in December 2021, before taking office, they would have managed to take the PL off the agenda, which would already be voted on at the end of that year and that they were informed that the OAB had been consulted about the project and had not responded.
“It is very difficult, in the political context of the state of São Paulo, for a project that has the support of the Judiciary and the Executive not to pass. We were left with a very small margin of confrontation.”
A law is currently being processed in the National Congress that, if approved, will reduce part of this impact. It seeks to institute zero costs for one of the categories of court fees.
Understand the OAB election in SP
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Six candidates are in the running
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Each has almost 200 members, distributed in different positions
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The board, which includes president and vice-president, has 5 people
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Voting is mandatory and direct, just over 320 thousand lawyers are eligible to vote
How is the National OAB chosen?
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Currently, the vote for choosing the board of directors of the OAB Nacional is indirect
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The choice is made by the entity’s Federal Council, where each state section has 3 representatives
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One of the flags of the OAB-SP candidates is the prediction of direct voting for the position, which would depend on approval by the National Congress
X-ray
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The largest section in the country, OAB-SP has around 384 thousand registered lawyers. In Brazil, there are just over 1.4 million
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In 2024, the budget of the São Paulo entity was R$535.6 thousand. When contacted, OAB Nacional did not inform its most recent budget
