A Braga Trial Opens Monday Over 141 Counts of Practising Law on a Degree the Prosecution Says Was Never Earned

The Braga court begins hearing a case on Monday that turns on a simple question: whether the man who represented clients from an office in the city for nearly three decades was ever entitled to do so. Prosecutors say he was not, and have charged him with 141 counts of usurpation of functions.

According to the indictment, the defendant, Luís Rufo, practised as a lawyer between 1993 and July 2022 "without ever being qualified" for it, because he never completed a law degree. The charges are limited to 141 instances not by the total number of cases he handled but by the five-year limitation period for criminal proceedings, a point the Procuradoria-Geral Regional do Porto made explicitly in its note on the trial.

The paper trail the prosecution describes

The account in the indictment starts in November 1985, when he enrolled at the University of Coimbra. In 1986 he passed one subject, História do Direito Português. He failed the other five of the first year.

Prosecutors say he then forged two certificates stating that he had completed six Coimbra law subjects, five from the first year and one from the second. He enrolled at the Universidade Portucalense in Porto, and to do so produced a forged certificate from a "Universidade Livre" he had never attended and at which he had never even been registered. A further Coimbra certificate, this one attesting to a pass in administrative law, is also alleged to be false. On that basis he completed the course at Portucalense in 1991, and registered with the Ordem dos Advogados the following year.

What followed, the prosecution says, was an ordinary professional life: appearances in courts and prosecution services around the country, procedural steps, applications and pleadings, every act proper to the profession. The Public Ministry has asked the court to declare forfeit to the state the income he declared as coming from that activity. He has not been convicted of anything; the trial starts on Monday.

Why it matters to anyone hiring a lawyer here

Portugal's protection against this is the Ordem dos Advogados register, and it is public. Every practising advogado has a cédula profissional number, and the Ordem's website lets anyone search the roll by name to confirm that a lawyer is registered and in good standing. The case is a reminder that the check exists and takes a minute, and that a lawyer's own letterhead is not the document that proves anything.

It also lands in a year when the qualification chain has been tested elsewhere. Thirty-six students paid 70,000 euros each to a Bragança flight school that qualified nobody, and the regulator eventually grounded it.

What this means for expats

• Verify the cédula before you pay a retainer: ask for the number and check it against the Ordem dos Advogados roll. A solicitador and an advogado are different professions with different registers.
• Foreign qualifications run through a formal route: our guide to recognition of a foreign academic degree sets out the three paths and the fee.
• Brazilian lawyers are a special case: the Ordem reopened reciprocity talks with Brazil's OAB after the 2023 termination.
• Acts done by an unqualified representative are not automatically void: the criminal case is separate from any civil consequences, and former clients would need their own advice.
• Background documents are easy to obtain here: see our guide to requesting a criminal record certificate.