Alexander Godínez Vargas

Practice Areas

Founding partner of Bufete Godínez y Asociados, he serves as an advisor and litigator specialized in Labor and Employment Law to a range of national and multinational companies, including some of the largest and most influential employers in Costa Rica and the region.

His areas of specialization include advising on complex company restructuring processes, conducting labor due diligence for mergers and acquisitions, and handling high-stakes litigation involving significant reputational or financial risks for the company. He is also adept at restructuring compensation systems for senior management, preventing contingencies in outsourcing or subcontracting arrangements, navigating the termination of highly complex employment contracts, and managing relations with unions and collective bargaining processes.

Career

Previously, he held the positions of Labor Judge of the Court of Appeals and Alternate Magistrate of the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice of Costa Rica.

In addition, he has served as an external consultant for a wide range of national and international governmental entities, including the Ministry of Labour of Canada, regional bodies like the Secretariat for Central American Economic Integration, and various United Nations organizations such as the ILO, UNICEF, and ECLAC.

He has conducted extensive work for the International Labour Organization (ILO), serving as both an official and external consultant on numerous projects throughout Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, and the Dominican Republic.

For the Ministry of Labour of Canada, he conducted a comprehensive assessment of compliance with key labor standards in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Belize, and the Dominican Republic, specifically in the context of negotiating a Free Trade Agreement between these countries and Canada.

He also played a critical role as a consultant on the ILO team tasked with developing an assessment of the labor relations systems in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, and Panama, within the framework of negotiating a Free Trade Agreement between these countries and the United States.

Professional Memberships

He currently serves as the second vice president and is a member of the Ibero-American Academy of Labor Law and Social Security. Previously, he served as the president of the Costa Rican Association of Labor Law and Social Security.

Publications

He has written 6 books and more than 60 academic publications, many of them in specialized magazines and law reviews on labor and employment law.

Personal

Law Degree from University of Costa Rica and Ph.D. in Law from Complutense University of Madrid.

Currently, he serves as a professor and the coordinator of the Labor Law department at the University of Costa Rica Law School. His academic contributions are significant, having previously founded and coordinated both the Master's program in Labor Law and the Doctorate program in Law at the Universidad Estatal a Distancia de Costa Rica.

He was awarded the "Alberto Brenes Córdoba" Award from the Costa Rican Bar Association for the best legal work of 1998.

He has been selected as an instructor for courses designed to train judges and justices from across Central America and the Dominican Republic. Notably, in 2020, he played a key role in multiple training initiatives organized by the Judicial School of the Supreme Court of Justice of Costa Rica, the Judicial Organization of Guatemala, and the Council of the Federal Judiciary of Mexico.

Industry Sector Expertise

He possesses specialized knowledge in various sectors, including financial services, telecommunications, hospitality, retail, food distribution and production, manufacturing, and education.