Lawyer Leonardo Sica was elected to lead the OAB-SP (Brazilian Bar Association of São Paulo) for the next three years, from 2025 to 2027.
Current candidate and current vice-president, under Patricia Vanzolini’s administration, he ran on a continuity ticket.
With a doctorate in law from USP (University of São Paulo) and a criminal lawyer, Sica presided over the AASP (São Paulo Lawyers Association) from 2015 to 2016.
In 2018, Sica had already been a candidate for president, with Patricia as vice-president, but they had lost.
The first woman to preside over the OAB-SP in more than 90 years of the entity’s history, Patricia was elected in 2021, after the two reversed positions just over a month before the election. At the time, criminalist Dora Cavalcanti had already announced that she was a pre-candidate. This year, all six boards were headed by men.
With a flag against re-election, she gave up running again for the main post. Throughout Patricia’s management, Sica was a very prominent deputy, representing the entity at various events.
Despite this, she was part of the ticket as a candidate for federal councilor and appeared quite prominently in the situation’s campaign, in an attempt to transfer enough votes to her management partner. Her image was used more prominently than that of the current vice-president, lawyer Daniela Magalhães, current secretary-general of the entity.
This year, the entity’s short campaign was marked by personal attacks and accusations of political and ideological influence.
Sica was attacked by the opposition following a domestic violence report filed against him in 2010 by his ex-wife, which was not followed through.
President of the entity from 2019 to 2021, Caio Augusto, in turn, was criticized especially for returning to the entity’s election after running in the 2022 elections as a federal deputy for União Brasil.
He had the support of two other former managers of the São Paulo section: Luiz Flávio Borges D’Urso, who presided over the entity for three consecutive terms and was part of the ticket, and also Marcos da Costa, who was in charge for another two. His ticket also had a composition with strong nods to a more conservative and right-wing legal profession, just like that of Alfredo Scaff, who was running for the second time.
Nephew of the PL president, Valdemar Costa Neto, Sica criticized the opposition’s use of kinship. Throughout the campaign, however, there was an event to support his ticket with the presence of his uncle and other politicians from the party in Mogi das Cruzes.
Throughout her administration, Patricia mobilized the diversity agenda, with emphasis on the lists of lawyer nominations for courts (the so-called constitutional fifth) with gender parity and racial quotas of 30%.
She also defends having introduced a more open policy for legal participation in the entity’s committees.
There was also what led to the entity’s annual surplus falling from R$47.6 million to R$684.4 thousand, from 2022 to 2023.
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.
One of the management’s glass ceilings mobilized in the campaign by opposition parties against the situation is the approval of the bill in 2023, with a direct impact on the legal profession. The episode was used to argue that the group in power would not have the ability to dialogue with the other Powers.
In addition to the board, which includes president and vice-president, the elected list is made up of several other positions — in total there are almost 200 members.
Each state section of the OAB is entitled to three seats on the entity’s Federal Council. The occupants of these positions can vote on different topics that impact the practice of law and also elect the national board of directors of the OAB. In addition, they form lists with legal nominees for vacancies in the TRFs (Federal Regional Courts) reserved for the constitutional fifth.
For the federal council, in addition to Patricia, the lawyer Silvia Souza, who currently holds this position, and Dione Almeida, who currently sits on the board of directors of the current administration, were elected. Among the substitutes are preparatory course teacher Marco Antonio Araujo Jr and lawyer Flávio Tartuce.
The largest category on the list, state councilors are also divided into incumbents and substitutes. They decide on topics related to law at the state level and form lists with nominees for the fifth constitutional vacancies at the TJ-SP (Court of Justice of the State of São Paulo).
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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
