I am not a solicitor or attorney. I am not legally qualified. Nor am I qualified to offer immigration advice. What is written below is my opinion.
The Spanish nationality concession already ended. There has been a major change to the Portuguese nationality law in for Sephardim in 2022. Read the report by the Sephardic Genealogical Society. I no longer provide research for new applicants for Portuguese citizenship because I do not think you can meet the deadline, unless there is a further change in the rules, and don’t want to charge for a service that will not meet your objectives.
If you want to learn about your Sephardic ancestry, without seeking citizenship, please get in touch: [email protected]
Do I need a lawyer for my Portuguese passport application?
Most British applicants with good genealogy do not use a lawyer when applying for Portuguese Sephardic citizenship. Using a lawyer can be expensive, and there is little or no work for an attorney to do unless you have particular complications. By contrast, passport applications to Spain placed you in a legal maze. Portugal is not Spain.
For American applicants, from a litigious society where they are often unused to dealing with foreign systems, the idea of not using a lawyer can seem intimidating, even bizarre. My advice is to review the application information on the websites of the Jewish communities of Lisbon and Porto who issue certificates confirming Sephardic origins. You, or a genealogist such as me, can prepare and format the genealogical information as required. There is not much else to do.
After hopefully receiving a certificate from one of the two Portuguese synagogues, some of the documents you send to the Portuguese Ministry of Justice will need to be notarised and apostiled. This is legal language that means the documents’ authenticity must be confirmed. You may not have done this before, but it is not difficult.
Where to find a Portuguese Sephardic citizenship lawyer?
Using a lawyer for your nationality application is a matter of personal choice as, of course, is using a genealogist. If you decide to use a lawyer, your embassy in Portugal should have a list of solicitors who are known to them, or your own attorney may be able to make an introduction.
Below are links to the Portuguese attorney lists of three Lisbon embassies:
American Embassy list: https://pt.usembassy.gov/u-s-citizen-services/attorneys/
Australian Embassy list: https://portugal.embassy.gov.au/lbon/lawyersLbon.html
British Embassy list: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/portugal-list-of-lawyers
I think you should also check to see that the attorney or law firm belong to the Ordem dos Advogados, the Portuguese lawyers’ association. https://portal.oa.pt/advogados/pesquisa-de-advogados/?l=EN
Not all lawyers working on Portuguese Sephardic citizenship applications are the same
I have spoken with lawyers (none of these belonging to the Ordem dos Advogados) who advertise online and who told me that they have obtained Spanish and Portuguese citizenship for applicants who apparently have no proven Jewish ancestry on the Iberian peninsula. My impression is that an unrepresentative minority of lawyers in Israel and Spain are the worst offenders.
Hopefully it is a statement of the obvious that you should always check the Ordem dos Advogados credentials of lawyers and attorneys advertising legal services for Portuguese passport applications. Online, anyone can claim to be anything. Most law firms do not advertise their services in the Google small ads.
Some members of the Portuguese National Assembly have raised the concern that some lawyers may be abusing the system to obtain European Union passports for clients who may not legitimately qualify. One solution would be for the Ministry of Justice to provide the two Portuguese synagogues who certify Sephardic origins with precise instructions on who qualifies and who does not, and what evidence is admissible. Portuguese citizens, of whom I am now one, might wonder why religious institutions are involved in legal processes two hundred years after the Portuguese Inquisition was abolished.
Do I need a lawyer for my Sephardic citizenship application?
Some people will anyway choose to use an attorney for the Sephardic nationality application to Portugal. They still need their genealogy in order. I am always happy to talk with lawyers and law firms in Portugal who belong to the Ordem dos Advogados and to foreign law firms, correctly registered in their country, who have a relationship with a Portuguese law firm belonging to the Ordem dos Advogados.
It needs to be emphasised that most attorneys are honest and reliable. Even Israeli ones.
Read my overview on applying for a Portuguese passport due to Sephardic ancestry.
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