VILLA & CRUZ, ATTORNEYS-AT-LAW, is a full-service firm founded upon the ideal of providing quality legal counsel and service. The Firm started out as Villa and Associates in July 2000, then grew to its current partnership as established on 10 July 2018. The Firm presently has a core group of five (5) lawyers, one (1) legal assistants, three (3) paralegals, and fifteen (15) office staff. To date, the Partners and Of Counsel have a total combined experience of about 70 years in the legal practice.
We are a hardworking and passionate team who understands and protects our clients’ interests as if they were our own, without compromising the principle that justice is both the means and the end. We maintain the trust and confidence of our clients as we achieve growth and prosperity for them and for the Firm through up-to-date legal knowledge, prompt and quality service, and efficient personnel. We nurture and improve these values to reap and preserve our shared benefits.
To be a leading full service Law Firm built on the utmost trust of all its clients, sustained by the competence and integrity of its people.
Corporate Law is one of the main practice areas of the Firm. Our clients rely on us for advice on appropriate types of business organizations, corporate structures, registration requirements (such as with the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Cooperative Development Authority) and special licenses (such as with the Philippine Export Zone Authority and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas). For our newly-organized and existing clients, we provide corporate housekeeping services, ensuring compliance with reportorial and licensing requirements. The Firm performs equity representation within the nationality limits allowed by law, and extensively provides corporate secretarial functions for nearly all its corporate clientele, assisting the officers in preparing the minutes of meetings of the shareholders and of the board of directors, issuing stock certificates and maintaining the stock and transfer books. Our Firm has been instrumental in some of our clients’ expansion, through merger or acquisition. We likewise routinely provide counsel on various corporate transactions including review, negotiation and enforcement of commercial contracts, and when necessary, suggest structural reorganization for better corporate administration and control.
Together with Corporate Law, the Firm has extensive experience in the handling of civil, criminal, administrative and arbitration cases with a broad spectrum of actions, either as prosecution or defense. The actions include contract enforcement, family relations, succession, estate settlement, contract enforcement, collection, intellectual property, construction disputes, deportation, land titles, financial and property related crimes, tax disputes, among others. The Firm has represented clients before various courts and quasi-judicial bodies and agencies, such as the Metropolitan Trial Courts (MTC), the Regional Trial Courts (RTC), the Court of Appeals (CA), the Supreme Court (SC), the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board (HLURB), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Office of the President (OP), the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB), various prosecutorial services under the Department of Justice (DOJ) the Construction Industry Arbitration Commission (CIAC), the Philippine Dispute Resolution Center, Inc. (PDRCI). The Firm has also represented clients in domestic and international arbitration proceedings.
Understanding the balance between capital and labor, the Firm has provided equal counsel for both employers and employees on Philippine labor and employment laws, practices and policies. Having represented both companies and employees in employment matters especially in arbitration and litigation, the Firm has acquired a perspective which has proved invaluable in attaining very satisfactory results for either side in the negotiation and execution of collective bargaining agreements. The Firm has represented clients in proceedings before the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), its main office and its various agencies regional offices such as the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) and the Philippine Overseas Employment Agency (POEA).
Realizing the value of attracting foreign capital and experience, the Firm has represented foreign nationals and companies before Philippine administrative bodies in immigration matters. The Firm specializes in securing visas and work permits for foreign nationals entering the Philippines, defending some against nuisance deportation actions, and when requested and authorized, to inquire into the immigration status of foreign nationals who travel to the Philippines.
As part of the Firm’s extensive corporate practice, it helps its clients with the registration of their Intellectual Property (patents, trademarks, and copyright), including the protection and renewal of the same. The Firm also handles intellectual property enforcement by coordinating with law enforcement in conducting surveillance, applying for search warrants, accompanying law enforcement in implementing the said warrants, and subsequent filing of the corresponding criminal and civil cases.
With experience in land acquisition for certain clients, the Firm conducts due diligence and audits genuineness of real property titles, computes tax and other liabilities, performs titling and subdivision activities, reviews and prepares real estate transaction documents such as donations, sales, leases and assignments. The Firm has represented or counseled both subdivision and condominium developers on the one hand and the homeowners’ or condominium associations, on the other. The Firm also engages in real estate brokerage, sometimes as the intermediary between the sellers and buyers of real property, at other times as the representative of the parties for the documentation of the transaction before the concerned government agencies.
