Portuguese firm PLMJ is set to open its doors in London this year with a representative office led by Hugo Rosa Ferreira to capture a greater volume of work from the London legal market. Ferreira, who currently heads the firm’s banking and finance practice, will become the firm’s London managing partner. According to the firm, this step “brings the firm’s network closer to the financial hub where clients make their decisions and to the major international law firms that work there”. PLMJ said that there had been an increasing volume of work referred by major UK and US firms present in London in matters relating to Portugal and Portuguese-speaking countries. Ferreira said: “We will be the link between Portuguese investors that are present in the UK or want to enter that market and potential UK investors that are very interested in Angola and Mozambique but require local references and partners.” In terms of volume, the referral work that the firm does is a ”substantial part of the total revenue”, Ferreira claimed, amounting from 5 to 7 per cent of the firm’s global revenue. Ferreira, who will be the sole partner in the representative office for one week a month, told The Lawyer that the firm’s plan was to have at least one person on a more permanent basis after the summer. The firm is not considering basing anyone full time in London. “We are enhancing our visibility and we also have a better opportunity to explain how we have established our network of firms in these jurisdictions and particularly in the standard of work,” he said. The firm set up a Swiss desk last year in Lausanne in response to increasing amounts of work involving private clients with assets in Switzerland (17 March 2014). The firm also set up a cooperation agreement with Madeira firm Mendes Londral & Associados in an extension to its network (17 July 2014). PLMJ is the second Portuguese firm to open a London office, following in the wake of Miranda Correia Amendoeira & Associados in late 2012 (15 November 2012). Larger Iberian rivals Cuatrecasas Gonçalves Pereira, Garrigues, Gómez-Acebo & Pombo and Uría Menéndez also have offices in the City.