Rafael A. Morales was recently chosen as the new Managing Partner of SyCip Salazar Hernandez & Gatmaitan, succeeding Llewellyn L. Llanillo who retired as a partner of the firm in August, 2009. Rafy joined SyCipLaw in 1975, and until his election as the new Managing Partner was the head of the firm’s Banking, Finance and Securities practice group.
As one of the country’s leading lawyers in the field of banking and finance, Rafy has been for many years a mainstay in international and regional reviews of corporate and commercial law practitioners. He is a Professorial Lecturer at the University of the Philippines College of Law and has authored several books and articles on Philippine banking and securities law. Last year, he served as President of the Inter-Pacific Bar Association, an international association, spanning 67 national jurisdictions, composed of more than 1,650 business and commercial lawyers who live in, or otherwise have a strong interest in, the Asia-Pacific Region.
Rafy is an alumnus of the University of the Philippines, where he obtained his bachelor of arts degree cum laude and also his bachelor of laws degree cum laude, and graduated valedictorian of his law school class. He placed fourth in the 1974 bar examinations. He earned his master of laws degree at the University of Michigan. He served brief legal stints abroad, as a foreign attorney with Rosenman Colin Freund Lewis & Cohen in New York (1978-1979), and later at Anderson Mori & Rabinowitz in Tokyo (1984-1986).