Cuba Connection

When Karel Suarez was 19 and a recent Cuban emigrant, he worked as a valet at an upscale South Florida restaurant. In between collecting keys and opening doors, he crammed for an intensive English-as-a-second-language course. 

“I remember the guys who worked with me talking about it,” says Suarez. 

“I would tell them, ‘I want to be a lawyer.’ And they were like, ‘Oh, really? I want to be an astronaut!’”

Twenty years later, Suarez is founder and managing partner at The Legal Team, a Coral Gables-based business law firm that focuses on corporate transactions, complex commercial litigation and international law.

Growing up in Cuba, Suarez’s information about the outside world was restricted. His father was a journalist, but could only report the news allowed by the government. 

“Within Cuba we heard, ‘We did this; we’re so great at that.’ And what you heard about what happened outside of Cuba was all bad,” Suarez says.

But Suarez had access to DirecTV, which was illegal in Cuba at the time, and he and his dad would sometimes watch U.S. football. On Saturday nights, he might watch an American movie.

“I could see things were different out there. People had more stuff,” he says. “It triggered me.” 

Suarez had always wanted to be a lawyer. In Cuba, it would have been a lot of work for as little as $20 or $30 a month. 

“And maybe at some point I would have a really good case, but the Cuban government would come in and say, ‘Hey, you’ve got to stop that lawsuit.’ And there’s really nothing I would be able to do,” he says.

So, in 2005, a few months into law school in Havana, Suarez told his parents his dream was to practice in America. They encouraged him, but the path was rough. 

He crossed the Juárez-El Paso border, lived in Florida with family friends, and got a job. Then he was told, before entering college and law school, he’d have to learn English.

“If you’re a surgeon, you don’t need to speak English fluently as long as you do your work well. But for us lawyers, all we do is read, write and speak the language,” he explains. 

Suarez went for a bachelor’s degree in business administration management, because, he says, “If I didn’t make it as a lawyer, there’s always going to be businesses in America.” After taking the LSAT in 2013, he went on to Florida International University College of Law.

He spent the first four years of his career at two Miami-based firms. But he was let go during the COVID-19 pandemic and decided to open his own practice, working from home and meeting with clients at a nearby Starbucks. His wife, Claudia Herbello, a corporate lawyer whom he met in law school, lent her expertise for the first year. 

The firm has now grown to 10 business lines, served by Suarez and nine of counsel attorneys. His educational background in business helped right from the start. So did his ties to Cuba. 

His graduation from law school occurred around the same time as the Obama administration’s loosening of U.S. trade restrictions against Cuba. The number of U.S. companies wanting to do business in Cuba surged, receded under Trump, then recovered under Biden, who rescinded Trump’s demotion of Cuba to the status of a nation involved in state-sponsored terrorism. Though Trump has since reinstated that status, the trade opened by Biden between private companies has continued. 

Through the ups and downs, Suarez helped companies get licenses to sell tourism services, food products, vehicles and construction materials to Cuba. It’s only a small part of his practice, but something for which he’s uniquely qualified. 

“Cuba is in Latin America, but it’s a different animal. Cuban officials want to know your relationships are not going to undermine the government,” Suarez says. “I’m a lawyer in the U.S., but I also lived in Cuba until I was 19. So I really have an idea of how the system works.”

Super Salsa 

Shortly after moving to the U.S. in 2006, Suarez tried out for a salsa dance routine to be performed midfield at the 2007 Super Bowl between the Indianapolis Colts and the Chicago Bears. He passed the audition—but he didn’t really know what the Super Bowl was. 

“Now I tell people that I danced at the Super Bowl, but back then it was just as if I were dancing at any football game,” Suarez says. “Now it means a lot.”