Law across two continents, with a single commitment: your outcome, with certainty.

I grew up in a very sad and deprived situation. My biological father rejected me before I was even born and, after my birth, my mother moved to Florianópolis, in Santa Catarina. As a child I was so talkative that an aunt nicknamed me the “Angels’ Lawyer”, because I never stopped talking.

I was raised by an alcoholic, violent stepfather, amid domestic violence, and looked down on as the “bastard” among his three daughters, my sisters. When I was 13, my mother found the courage to leave him. We moved to a favela in central Curitiba, in Paraná, and I started working very young, pulling a paper cart and collecting cardboard and cans.

At 15 I got into drugs and dropped out of school before finishing the 8th grade. I worked to help at home and to feed my addiction. It got so bad that, by around 20, I owed money to every drug den in the neighbourhood. My mother left the house and went back to Florianópolis, and I turned her house into a drug den. At my lowest point, she found a way to take me to Florianópolis, where I lived in a damp, mouldy basement, leading the same life: working by day and using drugs at night.

It was then, at 23, in front of a table covered in cocaine, that I had an encounter with God. I left all that behind, accepted Jesus and quit drugs that same week; giving up cigarettes took five days. That is also where I met my wife and found a new purpose in life.

I went back to school. I worked as a bricklayer’s assistant during the day and studied at night: I completed primary school through an adult education programme (CEJA), finished secondary school and went on to university. I started an internship in my 6th semester, passed the Brazilian Bar exam in 2021 and opened my own practice as the pandemic was winding down. I built a solid client base, set up the Dr. Ivan Albani law office, and things worked out.

In mid-2022 I received the offer and the opportunity to move to Portugal. I benefited from the reciprocity arrangement between Brazilian and Portuguese lawyers and deepened my knowledge of immigration, being an immigrant myself, and of business law, which had been my main niche in Brazil. By 2023, through referrals alone, I had built a client base large enough to form partnerships with lawyers long established in Portugal. That is how Albani Advocacia was born.

Today we work across a range of areas, in partnership with experienced lawyers. I have specialised in immigration to Brazil, Portugal and the United States, and in company formation and legal compliance.