Lawyers' Contribution to Business Development in Early Twentieth-Century Mexico

Abstract

The Mexican Revolution (1910) brought important changes to the social, political and economic spheres of Mexico. New legislation was passed to protect workers and redistribute land. The state acquired rights to petroleum, water, and subsoil minerals. For entrepreneurs this was an abrupt change from the previous regime. They had to adapt to the new policies and administrative state structure. Business lawyers aided companies in a country where the government had circumscribed the private sector's participation in the economy. Lawyers offered their clients important services, such as lobbying and aid in corporate restructuring. This article explores how in the midst of these new revolutionary regimes an important investment group used the services of business lawyer Manuel Gómez Morin to create Mexico's first holding company and to issue the first mortgage bonds in the country.