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 for various national and multinational companies, among which some of the largest and most representative employers in Costa Rica and the region.

His subspecialties are advising on company restructuring processes; the preparation of labor due diligence for mergers and acquisitions; complex litigation in which there is a high degree of reputational or patrimonial risk for the company; modifications of the compensation systems for senior management personnel; prevention of contingencies in outsourcing or subcontracting relationships; processes for the termination of highly complex employment contracts and 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.

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

He has worked as an official and external consultant for the International Labour Organization (ILO) on numerous projects and activities in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, and the Dominican Republic.

For the Ministry of Labour of the Government of Canada, he conducted an assessment on the compliance with certain minimum labor standards in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua, as well as Belize and the Dominican Republic, in the context of negotiating a Free Trade Agreement between these countries and Canada.

He participated as a consultant on the ILO team responsible for 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 of America.

Professional Memberships

He is a Member of the Ibero-American Academy of Labor Law and Social Security. Previously, served as president of the Costa Rican Association of Labor Law and Social Security.

Publications

He has written 6 books and more than 60 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.

He works as a professor and is the Labor Law department coordinator at the University of Costa Rica Law School. Previously, he founded and coordinated 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 invited as an instructor in courses organized for judges and justices from all over Central America and the Dominican Republic, and in 2020 he participated in various training activities 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.