Inês Garcia Beato

Inês is the Head of the Employment Group of the Lisbon office´s Corporate department.
For over 14 years, her legal practice has focused on advising national and multinational corporate clients in the private and public sectors on both domestic and cross-border Employment Law and Social Security matters, spanning a wide range of market sectors such as technology, finance, banking, insurance, retail & wholesale, health, industry and energy.

Her transactional experience in these practice areas encompasses advising on M&A transactions, both on the seller's and the buyer's side, in share or assets deals, as well as in business restructurings, in defining the strategy and conduct compliance in restructuring processes, establishing transfer processes resulting from mergers and demergers, collective dismissals and job extinction procedures. 

Her advisory work furthermore entails providing legal advice on the Employment Law aspects of the day-to-day running of the business, individual and collective labour relations, particularly hiring workers and executive staff, interpretation and negotiation of contractual conditions, personnel management (vacations, leaves, absences, remuneration, and benefits), drafting internal regulations and Codes of Good Practices, company implementation processes in Portugal, the management of whistleblowing channels, and the instruction and conduct of disciplinary procedures.

In the area of Social Security, Inês has additionally provided advice on the framework of statutory body members, secondments, and reversal processes due to social security debts, and she furthermore assists clients in Employment Law and Social Security litigation and pre-litigation matters, drafting the court submissions and representing the clients before the courts.

Her work and experience earned her the distinction of “Ones to Watch in Portugal” in Best Lawyers’ 2025 edition.

Inês joined Linklaters Lisbon office in 2025 as Head of Employment in the Corporate department.

She started her legal career in 2011 as Trainee Lawyer at the local law firm Gouveia Pereira, Costa Freitas & Associados. In 2014 she joined the international law firm Gómez-Acebo & Pombo Advogados as Trainee-Lawyer, where she became an Associate in 2014 and Senior Associate in 2022, working in its Labour and Social Security Department. She then joined the local law firm Morais Leitão, Galvão Teles, Soares da Silva & Associados (2023) as Principal Associate in the Labour, Social Security and Immigration Department.

In addition to legal advice and client management work, Inês also has overseen and guided the work of junior lawyers. She has also been involved in marketing and business development initiatives.

As a certified trainer, Inês has developed and taught personalised training programmes and workshops on Employment Law, notably on trending topics such as compliance, whistleblowing and the dignity of work, in the form of in-house training and conferences for clients.

She furthermore has lectured on versatility and functional mobility, disciplinary power and labour due diligence operations at NOVA School of Law in Lisbon (2015, 2016 and 2019), and for the Eduardo Mondlane University in Mozambique on Social Security Litigation (2017).

Inês holds a Bachelor´s Degree from the NOVA School of Law in Lisbon (2009). During her degree, she was an Erasmus student at the Faculty of Law of the Teramo University (Università degli studi di Teramo – Facoltà di Giurisprudenza) in Italy (2008).

She then obtained a Master´s Degree in Forensic Science (professional and research aspects in civil and business areas) of the School of Law of the Católica University of Lisboa (2011) and furthermore completed the Extension Course in Labour Law and Social Security of the School of Law of the Nova University (2015).

She is a fully qualified Member of the Portuguese Bar Association since 2014.

Inês is a certified training, having obtained her Pedagogical Aptitude Course (“CAP”, now “CCP”), in 2012.

She also completed a course on Professional Sports Practitioner Employment Contracts (2024) lectured by the Portuguese Bar Association.

She speaks Portuguese, English and Spanish.