Carlos Sierra graduated as an attorney from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, and has a postgraduate degree in civil and commercial law from the Escuela Libre de Derecho, an international law course taught at Duke University and the Universite Libre de Bruxelles, and aviation contracts law at IATA, and LLM studies in Air and Space Law at Leiden University in the Netherlands.
He has been in private practice for more than 19 years and has been a partner at Abogados Sierra since its inception in 1994.
During his professional life, he has been involved in the structuring and implementation of transactions involving the lease, sale and finance of commercial and business aircraft to various airlines, companies and individuals in México. He currently represents some of the major companies that lease and finance commercial aircraft. He has also advised lessors, financiers, commercial aircraft owners and business aircraft owners regarding their rights in various contexts, including in situations where lessees have defaulted on their contractual obligations and insolvency and liquidation proceedings of various Mexican airlines. He has acted as a speaker and moderator of various panels on aircraft finance and leasing and aviation law topics at various international conferences organized by the AWG, the US Trade and Development Agency, IATA, ALTA, IBA and other international entities.
He was Chair of the legal advisory panel of the Aviation Working Group from 2015-2017, to which he is still an active member. He is currently a member to the Internation Registry Board and the chair of the Aviation Law Committee of the International Bar Association.
He has written and collaborated in the publication of multiple articles addressing complex aviation law topics such as:
- "Aircraft Repossession and Enforcement: Practical Aspects", published by Kluwer International, 2009.
- "Aviation Finance: A Global Guide From Practical Law", published by Thomson Reuters, 2016.
- "Practitioners' Guide to the Cape Town Convention and The Aircraft Protocol", published by the Aviation Working Group, 2015.
Carlos Sierra has been invited to draft relevant legal reviews such as:
- Aviation Introduction to the Chambers Latin America Guide for 2016 and 2017.
- Commercial Litigation Review for Mexico published by Thomson Reuters in 2016.
- American Bar Association legal publication.
Carlos Sierra has been recognized as an industry leader by many publications and directory's worldwide.