Mrs. Lopes is a founder and senior partner at Szazi, Bechara Storto Reicher e Figueiredo Lopes Advogados. She co-heads the Public Law, also she is one of the heads of the Social Business and Human Rights Law of the firm.

Mrs. Lopes has almost 20 years of legal, regulatory, and procedural management experience in the field of non-profit law, advising civil society organizations and governments, especially regarding the implementation of participatory public management and anti-corruption mechanisms.

Lecturer in national and international events and postgraduate courses on civil society organizations, partnerships with the State, transparency, participation and anti-corruption mechanisms, human rights, people with disabilities, freedom of association and democracy.

As a Special Advisor to the Minister of the Secretary of Government of the Presidency of the Republic, from 2011 to 2016 Ms. Lopes lead the technical and political articulation towards the elaboration of a new Legal Framework for Civil Society Organizations in the Federal Government. She has actively participated in drafting Law 13.019/2014, Decree 8.726/2016, and other normative instruments in the period.

From 2005 to 2011 she has worked with civil society organizations in the construction, ratification and monitoring of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the first human rights treaty of the 21st century.

Mrs. Lopes was a Counselor representing the Federal Council of the Brazilian Bar Association at CONADE - National Council for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006 to 2011). She was President of the Special Commission on Third Sector Law and Social Movements of the Federal Council of the Brazilian Bar Association (2009).She is a member of the Third Sector Law Commission of the Brazilian Bar Association - São Paulo Section (2019-2021) and Advisor to the Consultative Council of the Office of the Public Defender’s Ombudsman of São Paulo State (2020/2022).

She was a member of the Board of Directors (2011-2014) and the Advisory Board (2004-2011) of the International Center for Non-profit Law (ICNL), in Washington - USA, an international organization that operates in the regulation of the field of non-profit entities, social participation and philanthropy in more than 100 countries.

Professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (COGEAE) in specialization courses in Social Project Management in Third Sector Organizations and extension courses on MROSC and related topics. 

She has published books and articles on these topics, among which the books Marco Regulatório das Organizações da Sociedade Civil: a construção da agenda no Governo Federal (2011-2014) [Regulatory Framework of Civil Society Organizations: the construction of the agenda in the Federal Government (2011-2014)] (ISBN 978-85-85142-35-3); and Entenda o MROSC: Marco Regulatório das Organizações da Sociedade Civil: Lei 13.019/2014 [Understand MROSC: Regulatory Framework for Civil Society Organizations: Law 13.019/2014 (ISBN 978-85-85142-71-1). 

She is a researcher linked to NEATS - Center for Advanced Studies of the Third Sector at PUC/SP.

English, Portuguese and Spanish

International Society for Third-Sector Research (ISTR)

She is a PhD candidate in Public Law at University of Coimbra (Portugal). In 2009 she defended her master dissertation at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo about the “Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, its Optional Protocol and Accessibility”. She graduated at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo in 2000.