Paloma Zabalgo

Trayectoria profesional

Paloma Zabalgo is a lawyer, founder and managing partner of Zabalgo Family Lawyers, a Madrid-based firm established in 2010. With more than twenty years of professional experience, she specialises in Family Law, succession matters, International Family Law and the financial and business issues that frequently arise within family disputes.

Her work combines the strategic direction of complex proceedings with close attention to the personal, financial and cross-border consequences of each case. She advises on preventive planning, negotiation and court proceedings, providing clear, technically rigorous guidance tailored to the circumstances of each family.

She is Chair of the Family and Succession Law Section of the Madrid Bar Association (ICAM), one of the institution’s leading specialist sections, bringing together more than 5,600 legal professionals connected with this field. Through this role, she promotes specialist practice, legal debate and continuing professional development in an area that requires both technical precision and a deeply human perspective.

She is also Vice-President of the Spanish National Committee of the International Association of Lawyers (UIA), a founding member of Plataforma Familia y Derecho and a member of the Spanish Association of Family Lawyers (AEAFA). In 2026, she founded Círculo Zabalgo, an editorial platform and think tank focused on law, business, wealth and leadership.

International professional experience

In 2025, Paloma completed a contracted professional secondment with the Family Law Department of Judge & Priestley in London. The placement provided direct exposure to international Family Law and succession matters, including divorce, financial remedies and child arrangements.

It also involved comparative work with Spanish practice and a first-hand understanding of the professional relationship between solicitors and barristers, client care and the management culture of an English law firm. This experience strengthens her work on cross-border matters and her commitment to a specialist, well-organised and people-centred Family Law practice.

Education and teaching

• Law degree, formally recognised as equivalent to Master’s level.
• Doctoral studies in Private International Law at Rey Juan Carlos University; thesis pending completion.
• Senior Management Programme (SMP), IE Business School, March–October 2026.
• Legal Leadership Development Executive Programme, Women in a Legal World (WLW), in collaboration with Harvard Law School Executive Education, 2025.
• Former lecturer at ISDE Law & Business School, teaching Private International Law and child arrangements.
• Lecturer on ICAM’s Legal Practice and Court Representation programme for the 2025–2026 academic year, teaching Civil Contracts and Oral Advocacy.
• Supervisor of student placements from the Autonomous University of Madrid, Complutense University of Madrid and other universities.

She is currently preparing and will direct the ICAM Master’s Programme in Family and Succession Law, scheduled to begin in 2027.

Legal publications and editorial coordination

Paloma coordinated the 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 editions of the collective work Derecho de Familia, published by Tirant lo Blanch. She has written chapters and legal analyses on parental responsibility, child arrangements, children’s rights in digital settings, comparative law and judicial support measures for people with disabilities.

• “La patria potestad y guarda y custodia en el Código Civil. La responsabilidad parental en derecho comparado”, in Derecho de familia 2023, Tirant lo Blanch, 2023.
• “La nueva regulación legal conforme a la Ley 8/2021: el proceso judicial sobre la capacidad de las personas y su transformación al proceso de medidas judiciales en apoyo a las personas con discapacidad”, in Derecho de familia 2022, Tirant lo Blanch, 2022.
• “El derecho de la infancia y adolescencia al acceso a Internet y el derecho a la información contra el derecho de la infancia a la salud y a la seguridad”, in La protección de la infancia en entornos digitales, Dykinson, 2024.
• “Evolución en la doctrina del Tribunal Supremo: sentencias de Doña Encarnación Roca Trías”, co-authored with other contributors, in Derecho de Familia. Homenaje a Encarnación Roca Trías, Sepin, 2021.
• “¿Son necesarios los tribunales especializados en Derecho de Familia?”, Legal Today, 2016.
• “Los procesos de familia y la actividad judicial derivada del covid-19: un análisis en el derecho comparado”, Abogacía Española, 2020.
• The series “Vivencias de una abogada española en Londres”, published by Economist & Jurist in 2025, examining English Family Law and comparative practice.

Congress leadership and selected contributions

• Driving force behind the 1st ICAM Congress on Family and Succession Law (2025), which brought together more than 240 professionals and addressed specialist courts, International Family Law, economic abuse and succession issues after divorce.
• Member of the organising committee for the 6th National Congress on Family Law, Childhood and Disability (Faculty of Law, Complutense University of Madrid, 2026).
• Moderator of the ICAM session “Innovation applied to Family and Succession Law firms: AI, management and efficiency” (2026).
• Speaker at the ICAM event “Shared care: a genuine exercise in co-parenting responsibility?” (2025).
• Contributor to the 1st ICAM Equality Week round table (2024), examining the links between equality, childhood and adolescence, family and succession, employment and human rights.

In November 2026, she will lead the 2nd ICAM Congress on Family and Succession Law, whose programme includes a workshop on artificial intelligence applied to the management, organisation and profitability of law firms.

Press and legal commentary

Paloma has published legal articles and contributed as a specialist lawyer to legal and mainstream media. Her professional analysis has appeared in, among others, Infobae, El Economista, Abogacía Española and Economist & Jurist.