When Alvaro Ramos reflects on his professional journey, he speaks of it in chapters: law, finance, private equity and now the priesthood. Each stage built upon the last, with the rigorous training he received early on at Freshfields as his foundation. Describing it as his “real law school,” Ramos’ time at Freshfields was a defining experience that continues to shape his work today, even from a parish on the outskirts of Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

Discovering Freshfields

Ramos’ path to Freshfields and Corporate Real Estate law was hardly conventional. As a law student in Madrid without family ties to the profession, he carved his own way forward through curiosity and persistence. In the days before online rankings, he called a financial journalist to ask which firms were most highly regarded. The journalist pointed him toward Freshfields — a name Ramos had never heard before.

“It was literally the place where I cut my teeth,” he recalls. “Freshfields became my real law school. I learned what it meant to work at the highest standards of professionalism.”

From the start, Ramos was immersed in complex, high-stakes transactions. He worked on a global financial firm’s joint venture with a Spanish developer, advised a German bank’s open-ended real estate fund in its first moves in Spain, and once famously raced across Madrid on his scooter to deliver a binding offer from a multinational investment bank to a global telecom firm just before the auction deadline.

More important than the adrenaline, however, was the discipline of the Freshfields environment. “We shared offices with more experienced associates, so you absorbed their methods by imitation. I learned to analyze matters commercially, to communicate complex issues simply and to coordinate multiple parties under extreme pressure. Those habits never left me.”

Building a career beyond law

After Freshfields, Ramos pursued an MBA at the University of North Carolina and moved into investment banking with a large multinational bank. Later, at Azora Capital in Madrid, he helped build a major portfolio of student housing. He thrived in private equity, praised by colleagues as one of the firm’s most promising young professionals. Yet he felt a deeper calling.

“I always struggled with why I was so fortunate when so many others were not,” he says. He began channeling his own resources — and those of like-minded friends — into nonprofit projects in Latin America. On a visit to Honduras in 2010, he encountered ACOES, a grassroots organization serving children in some of the poorest neighborhoods. Its do-it-yourself model, where students and volunteers ran schools and programs with minimal overhead, struck him as both effective and sustainable.

By 2013, Ramos left finance behind to join the mission full-time. Five years later, he was ordained as a Catholic priest.

A Freshfields mindset in Honduras

Today, Ramos co-leads ACOES, which provides education and support to around 12,000 students across Honduras. The organization operates schools, tutoring programs and health initiatives in some 200 locations, largely staffed by students themselves.

In building this model, Ramos drew directly on his Freshfields training. “Even though I’m now a missionary priest, 60 percent of my job resembles what I did at Freshfields,” he explains. “I define issues, create roadmaps, organize teams, assign responsibilities and oversee execution. It’s still transaction management — just with different stakes.”

The parallel extends to culture. At Freshfields, Ramos was struck by the apprenticeship model, where knowledge was passed from senior lawyers to juniors. At ACOES, he has recreated that structure: younger students take on responsibilities, older ones manage operations and graduates pass the torch to the next generation. “It’s become a kind of partnership, just like at Freshfields,” he says.

His financial background also informs how ACOES measures impact. Ramos often frames the mission in private-equity terms, calculating the “internal rate of return” of educating a child for 15 years against the income they later earn. The language has resonated with donors, including former Blackstone executive Hamilton “Tony” James, who helped raise over $1m for the mission in 2023.

Lessons that endure

Looking back, Ramos sees Freshfields not just as the launchpad of his career but as the crucible where he forged the habits of discipline, analysis and teamwork that sustain him today. “The analytical skills I developed there — digging deep to understand the logic of a problem and then finding practical solutions — are the same ones I use whether I’m structuring a deal, resolving a financial challenge or even tackling theological questions,” he says.

His connections to the firm remain active. Alumni from the Spanish office have formed a club to support ACOES’ health projects, and Freshfields contacts have introduced him to some of his largest donors in Spain and the US.

A broader perspective

Ramos’ story is full of contrasts: from corporate law to parish ministry, from private equity to the poorest barrios of Honduras. Yet he resists framing it as a rupture. To him, the throughline is preparation.

“Freshfields gave me the mindset to tackle complex challenges, whatever the field,” he reflects. “It taught me that professionalism, rigor and teamwork are not just for law or finance. They’re universal. And they’re exactly what’s needed to make change in the world’s most difficult places.”