Urquiola becomes the second female lawyer president in the history of this association, which was founded in 1927. She is also the first Spanish lawyer to hold the post. Urquiola de Palacio represents the UIA before the World Bank Group and the Global Forum on Law, Justice and Development.
A practicing lawyer since 1992, Urquiola de Palacio is Managing Partner at Palacio y Asociados, Attorneys at Law; she has experience in civil and Commercial, European and international.
De Palacio has been an arbitrator since 2003, participating in arbitration procedures before the Spanish Court of Arbitration, the Madrid Court of Arbitration and the Court of Arbitration of the Madrid Bar Association. She is also an international arbitrator of the Civil and Commercial Court of Arbitration (CIMA) and the Inter-American Commission on Commercial Arbitration (CIAC). She has participated in arbitrations in law and ex aequo et bono in numerous capacities, as counsel (since 1993), secretary, sole arbitrator, co-arbitrator and president of arbitral tribunals.
Urquiola de Palacio has been acting for several years as a mediator in civil and commercial matters and features in the list of individual mediators established by the Ministry of Justice.
In September 2019, De Palacio became the President of the Madrid Court of Arbitration (she has been a member of the Plenary of the Court since September 2017) and the Madrid Business Mediation Centre of the Madrid Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Services. Since October 2019, she is vice-president of the Madrid International Arbitration Center, co-founded by the Madrid Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Services She is also President of CEA Women at the Spanish Club of Arbitration.
Urquiola de Palacio is a member of the Council of Bar Associations of the Community of Madrid for a third non-consecutive term.
De Palacio is Vice-President of the Madrid Bar Association’s Institution for the Protection of the Orphans of the Legal Profession (currently serving as Chairperson/President).
Since 2015, Ms. de Palacio has been teaching at the Universidad Pontificia de Comillas ICAI-ICADE in the Master of Access to the Legal Profession program, where she lectures on litigation before the European Court of Human Rights. She is a Member of the Advisory Council of the UC3M – Deloitte Legal Chair of Business Law (since November 2019) and is a Member of the Academic Council of the Master’s degree in EU Law (MUDUE) of the Carlos III University of Madrid (since May 2015). A frequent lecturer at various institutions, Ms. de Palacio regularly collaborates with the International University Competition on Arbitration and Commercial Law -Moot Madrid, organized by the Carlos III University of Madrid and the United Nations Commission for International Commercial Law. Between 2007 and 2009, she was part of the educational team tasked with the design and implementation of the law course in the Instituto de Empresa’s (IE) law degree.
De Palacio was a member of the Governing Board of the Spanish Arbitration Club (2017-2020) and President of the Arbitrator candidate Evaluation Committee of the Court of Arbitration of the Madrid Bar Association (2018-2019). De Palacio has also been a member of the Governing Board of the Madrid Bar Association and a member of the Inter-professional Union of Madrid. She has been a member, Treasurer, Vice President and President of the Board of the Alumni Association of the Faculty of Law at the Universidad Complutense. In 2012, she was included in the candidate list of ad hoc judges for the European Court of Human Rights by Spain. She was outside counsel to the Commercial Law division of Banco Central Hispanoamericano, S.A. from 1993 to 2001.
The Madrid Bar Association bestowed honorary membership on Palacio in recognition of her work as a Counselor of the Council of the Madrid Bar Association and for her work in favour of the legal profession during her professional career. She is a corresponding academic of the Royal Academy of Jurisprudence and Legislation of Spain, attached to Section 6 (Private International Law).
Born in Madrid on 9 December 1967, she has a degree in Law from the Universidad Complutense. She studied at the Lycée Français de Madrid, obtaining both the Spanish and the French (major in economy) baccalaureates.
