Carmen Varela Álvarez

Managing partner
Lawyer and mediator

Education and specialization

She holds a law degree from the University of Barcelona in 1992. She is a mediator, attorney at the Ecclesiastical Court of Barcelona, and a collaborative lawyer.

She is the managing partner of Carmen Varela, Abogados de Familia, and specializes in child custody, national and international divorces, termination of civil unions, child abduction, transfer of children to other countries, filiation, marriage settlements, exequatur, amendments to judgments, claims for alimony and financial compensation, disability, and minors.

She is president of the Family Section of the ICAB (Barcelona Bar Association), a professor on the Master’s Degree in Family and Children’s Law at the University of Barcelona; a Postgraduate Degree in Family and Children’s Law and Master’s Degree in Mediation from the ICAB; and a Master’s Degree in Law and Master’s Degree in Family and Children’s Law from the ISDE (Higher Institute of Law and Economics), as well as an expert in International Family Law from the same private university.

She is recommended by the NGO Reunite, a founding member and vice-president of ASIME (Association against International Child Abduction), a founding member and President of the Exchange Commission of AIJUDEFA (International Association of Family Lawyers), a founding partner and member of ACF (Collaborative Association of Family Law), a member of AEAFA (Spanish Association of Family Lawyers), SCAF (Catalan Society of Family Lawyers), President of the Canon Law Commission of AMAFI (Madrid Association of Family and Children’s Lawyers) and UIA (International Union of Lawyers).

Trajectory

She is a frequent speaker on national and international family law, having recently given lectures in New York, São Paulo, Algeciras, Barcelona, Palma, Mallorca, Mexico City, Madrid, Montevideo, Dakar, and Munich.

Carmen has been consulted numerous times by the press, radio, and television, and has been mentioned as an expert in prestigious publications such as La Vanguardia, Expansión, and ABC.

In addition to being the creator and administrator of the LinkedIn group “Family Law,” which currently brings together 12,000 lawyers, judges, and family law professionals from around the world, she created the first family law blog in Catalonia and has been selected several times as one of the most influential family lawyers on social media (Top Influencers).

Associations