A story that began in 1950.
Three voices — our father, my brother Daniel, and me — building, step by step, legal architecture as a specialty. Seventy-five years alongside those who design, build, and manage.
Seventy-five years alongside those who build.
Who we are. The firm was born at our father's hand in 1950. He set out to represent architects, engineers, and master builders in the difficult task of creating, inventing, and carrying out projects of every kind — for companies and individuals seeking solutions and ground rules for the parties involved in the situations and disputes that can arise along the way — using the tools of legal architecture, understood as a frontal and decisive encounter between architecture and law.
My brother Daniel followed in his footsteps in 1976, sharpening the difference in styles, ambitions, and the drive to surpass what had been done in the specialty, seeking to deliver quality and excellence to those who called on us for their legal matters. Later, in 1982, I joined the firm, always working to strengthen our standing within society as a whole through new strategies — ultimately taking the lead with the publication of the book that marked a before and after in the world of law: Honorarios de Arquitectos, a beacon that since its creation in 1989 seeks to guide all who embrace the specialty and have the passion and drive to work in resolving the many situations that architecture generates as a whole.
Today, 75 years after our founding, I can say we have the best team possible: lawyers, architects, engineers, and notaries. We are the spearhead of a firm that represents, sponsors, and defends a wide range of clients — builders, developers, architects, engineers, master builders, real-estate agencies, entrepreneurs in general, and individuals carrying out work across the full range of construction activity. Also those harmed or aggrieved by the negligence of the few who, working in this enormous task of development and construction, fail to meet their obligations and must be brought under the rule of law and of civil and contractual duties.
With the same drive as the firm's first day — but with more experience, knowledge, and resolve — we are here, present for this beautiful specialty that captured us from the very beginning and that keeps alive the hope of doing things right, in favor of our clients and friends.
Dr. Ricardo Adrián Butlow
Director · UBASince 1982 he has held the executive direction of Estudio Jurídico Butlow, a firm specialized in legal architecture. He leads a distinguished group of professionals and expert witnesses who each contribute from their own specialty across the wide variety of legal situations that arise in the world of construction.
His work combines legal rigor with the technical reading of project and site: forty-two years of continuous practice advising developers, condominium associations, architects, engineers, and investors at the most technical edges of private law.
He also coordinates an interdisciplinary expert team of practicing architects, allowing the firm to render precise opinions on construction defects, building pathologies, cost-trust schemes, and condominium disputes.
- UBA · Attorney
- CAI — Consultant
- ARQA
Our team
The firm integrates expert architects who bring the reading of project and site. The pair translates technical vocabulary into legal — and back — in every expert report, opinion, and strategy.
We have a support staff that keeps the firm running. They coordinate the schedule, keep every case file in order, and support communication with clients and expert witnesses, so that every case moves forward clearly and nothing slips through the cracks.
The studio in pictures.
Four decades of boutique practice in legal architecture — exhibitions, classes, conferences, and more.
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