JOSÉ LUIS DE CASTRO 

The Prof. Dr. José Luis de Castro Martín is a Lawyer of the Illustrious Bars of Madrid and Malaga, and has also served as Magistrate of the Provincial Court of Madrid. He has taught for thirty-five consecutive years at various public and private universities, including the Universidad Pontificia Comillas-ICADE and the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid , at whose Law School he was Vice Dean. He obtained his doctorate, with the highest qualification, at the same Autonomous University, later expanding his studies, as a Visiting Researcher with a postdoctoral fellowship, at the Institute of Civil Law and Civil Procedural Law of the Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich and at the European Law Research Center at Harvard University.

As a Lawyer, Professor De Castro has been Director of the Litigation and Arbitration Department at the international law firms LINKLATERS and BIRD & BIRD, later founding his own professional firm, DE CASTRO / ESTUDIO DE ABOGADOS, specializing in the formulation of appeals for cassation and procedural infringement before the Supreme Court and appeals for amparo and annulment before the Constitutional Court, the General Court and the Court of Justice of the European Union, and the European Court of Human Rights. He has participated in international arbitrations before the International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), also acting as Arbitrator of the Court of Arbitration of the Madrid Chamber of Commerce and Industry. He has published books and articles on different issues of Commercial Law, Civil Law and Procedural Law, including the outstanding monograph Las Cartas de Patrocinio, work for which he received the Judicial Power Award in 1994. Commission of Legal Lexicon of the Royal Spanish Academy which carried out the renovation and redefinition of the words with legal meaning in the Dictionary of the Spanish Language (DRAE, 22nd and 23rd edition). He is a Corresponding Academician of the Royal Academy of Jurisprudence and Legislation and has recently been appointed Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Pro Bono Spain Foundation, a Foundation dedicated to providing free assistance to the needs of legal advice for entities of the third social sector.