Thus, I was the first to enter a higher education course in the community where I was born. The information was shallow and perhaps available in municipal public libraries and the few professionals that existed in my hometown (Poá-SP) were inaccessible, behold, they circulated in a society that at that time was unreachable for me.

It was already at university that I understood that I could choose to enter not only the private sector, but also the public sector, being able to choose to be a police chief, prosecutor, judge, prosecutor, public defender, among so many professions of public career related to law.

However, it was in the private sector that I sought to make my own professional revolution, even though I knew that it would never be an easy task to advocate, behold, to this day I believe it is one of the most difficult professions to sustain in the long term.

It was exactly in 1998 that I had the opportunity to meet a large law firm in the business area in the capital of São Paulo, I was hallucinated and I wanted to be a part of it at any cost.

Well-aligned professionals, discussing business, investigating companies, talking about the stock market, and mainly traveling through several states of Brazil, with even international CVs, which I say that, with due proportions, they are very similar to the current North American series of law firm. 

It wasn't easy, discovering from excellent professionals I met, that the life of a law firm and its members was not just about technical knowledge, but several legal skills, and even behavioral ones, to be successful.

The routine of relentless invoices that knock on our doors, the lack of incentive and opportunities to associate are forces that are often cowardly and the charming side of the profession is most often played in the corner of any room in an office, which fatally leads the professional to give up the career.

At times I tried to take advantage of even centenary structures to be able to have a history and make a professional career and leave my legacy.

However, being a partner in a firm for someone from the interior of São Paulo, poor, unknown, with no blood ties to the partners in the office, was something unusual at that time.

The much talked about figure of partnership today was something out of this world and I understood in the worst way possible, that the figure of the lawyer-entrepreneur was (as until today)   a rare and unlikely thing, as it is difficult to untie the egos, vices, conflicts of interest and attachments to property, from a healthy, visionary and entrepreneurial attitude, which fatally distanced them from the creation of solid projects that perpetuated the rifts in professional relationships.

Frustrated, although it has gained a lot of scope, I turned off and looked for opportunities in public life, because I believed that in this way the long-awaited professional success depended only on my efforts and in this way I went through the executive and legislative, and even got to teach without any vocation for such a magical task.

Though fond of politics and economics, the public system is inefficient, cumbersome, and at times disheartening, and so it didn't take long for me to bump into gigantic law firms again, and I was reawakened; but this time, to build an innovative project that could bring people together to form a firm that would give young entrepreneurs the opportunity to grow in an environment favorable to knowledge and joint construction through partnership.

It's frustrating as at the University, basic things about economics, administration, leadership, among other emotional skills that a legal professional needs to venture into the private sector and open a law firm are not taught, not even counting their vocation.

Therefore, I sought knowledge in several areas such as administration, economics, psychology and especially sales (of course it couldn't be different, son of a salesman and mother seamstress), it's in my veins to undertake and what we sell is our time.

It was then that, in December 2008, I allowed myself to leave the public sector to   find people who wanted to build a law firm together, making law more functional, less bureaucratized, with the ideal not only of resolving conflicts , but mainly to make business viable.

Thus, Todai e Mota Advogados was born, currently known as Todai Advogados.

Many lawyers and collaborators passed through our office and made their contribution to get us here, and our biggest challenge is to find people with a common ideal and move them; youth, ambition and willpower are necessary fuels for a young professional to evolve; however, for the most part, it is accompanied by impatience and inability to be resilient, which weakens every professional and makes him want to skip steps.

Anyway, I'm curious by nature and I'm fascinated in trying to predict what the future holds, but one thing I'm sure, I won't stop looking for people who lack opportunities, but vibrate with the desire to grow.

Paulo Lupercio Todai Junior
Founding partner of Todai Advogados