João Maurício Adeodato, a Brazilian jurist and legal philosopher, died on May 19, 2026, at age 70.
Born João Maurício Leitão Adeodato on March 12, 1956, he was born in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, and moved to Pernambuco during childhood. He earned his law degree at the Law School of Recife, at the Federal University of Pernambuco, began working as a lawyer in 1978, and the following year entered a master’s program in law at the University of São Paulo under Miguel Reale.
In higher education, he contributed to the consolidation of postgraduate studies in law and worked as a researcher and consultant. In the 1980s, he also made the first critical analysis of Hannah Arendt’s work in Brazil and became a pioneer of Rhetorical Theory of Law.
João Maurício Adeodato, 70, Brazilian jurist and legal philosopher.