Labor Lawyer in Palermo, Buenos Aires: which court hears your claim and how it proceeds

If you work or were dismissed in Palermo, your claim does not start in a courtroom: it starts at SECLO, the mandatory pre-trial conciliation stage under Law 24.635. Only once that stage is exhausted do you sue before the National Labor Court, the jurisdiction covering the whole City of Buenos Aires.

The court that hears your case if you work in Palermo

Palermo lies inside the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, and that alone decides who judges your case: the National Labor Court. Section 20 of Law 18.345 -as replaced by section 79 of Law 27.802- assigns to that jurisdiction the individual disputes founded on the employment contract, on collective bargaining agreements or on labor law rules.

The jurisdiction runs eighty single-judge trial courts and a National Labor Court of Appeals with ten divisions. None of them sits in Palermo: the buildings are downtown (see labor courthouse locations). The procedure is the one set by Law 18.345 (consolidated text, Decree 106/98), reformed in March 2026 by the Labor Modernization Law 27.802: the key changes are covered in our note on the procedural reform of Law 18.345.

Before the courtroom there is a mandatory stop. Section 1 of Law 24.635 requires claims falling within the National Labor Court's jurisdiction to be dealt with at SECLO before any lawsuit is filed. Your Palermo case is one of them, so it applies to you; section 3 makes the procedure free of charge for the worker. Full circuit in SECLO mandatory conciliation.

What about the City's own labor courts?

City laws 6.789 and 6.790 created a local labor jurisdiction -ten trial courts and a two-division Court of Appeals to begin with- along with its procedural code. Section 90 of Law 27.802 also approved the Agreement transferring that judicial function to the City of Buenos Aires labor courts, signed on 9 February 2026.

None of that has changed where your case is heard yet. Section 92 is explicit: Law 18.345 stays in force until the transfer is completed. And those local courts are suspended by the 10 July 2025 ruling of Division III of the Federal Administrative Court of Appeals (case 38/2025, Asociación de Magistrados y Funcionarios de la Justicia Nacional v. City of Buenos Aires). In plain terms: today, a dismissal in Palermo is sued before the National Labor Court.

Step by step, with the real deadlines

This is the route for an employment relationship whose place of work is in the City of Buenos Aires.

1. Formal notice by free telegram. Law 23.789 lets you send telegrams and certified letters at no cost for any communication tied to your employment contract; Ministry of Labor Resolution 1356/2007 also included those addressed to workers' compensation insurers. Section 57 of the Employment Contract Law turns the employer's silence into a presumption against it, provided the silence lasts a reasonable period that can never be shorter than two business days. See free labor telegram.
2. Filing at SECLO. It is filed through the web portal with counsel. Section 8 of Law 24.635 orders the conciliator to be drawn by lot, and section 16 requires a hearing within ten days of that appointment. Section 17 requires both parties to attend with a lawyer.
3. Negotiation on a closed clock. The conciliator has twenty business days from the hearing (section 18), extendable by agreement for up to fifteen more. Failing to appear without justification costs a fine equal to 100% of the conciliator's fee (section 19).
4. If there is a settlement. It is recorded in a special minute and submitted for approval, which must be decided by reasoned resolution within three days (section 23). Once approved it is res judicata. If the employer does not pay, section 26 allows enforcement before the national labor trial courts, with a fine in your favor of up to 30% of the settled amount.
5. If there is no settlement: the lawsuit. The minute is drawn up and the judicial route opens. Proof of having exhausted the conciliation stage is a requirement of the complaint (section 65, Law 18.345), which since the reform must also list the evidence and identify the documents. See labor complaint requirements under section 65.
6. Service and answer. Section 68 sets a ten-day term to answer. The answer is then served on you and you have three days to admit or deny the other side's documents (section 71, as amended by section 84 of Law 27.802). If the company does not answer, it is declared in default and the facts pleaded are presumed true.
7. Moving the case forward: the most dangerous change. Section 46, replaced by section 82 of Law 27.802, provides that the parties must move the proceedings forward and that the case lapses without prior notice: six months at first instance, three on appeal and in summary, enforcement and interlocutory proceedings. Case management used to be the court's duty. Today an abandoned file is lost.

If your case is a workplace accident or occupational disease, the route is different: those claims are excluded from pre-trial conciliation, so you do not go through SECLO. You go to the jurisdictional medical board, the mandatory and exclusive stage under section 1 of Law 27.348, whose constitutionality the Supreme Court upheld in "Pogonza v. Galeno ART" (2 September 2021). Details in the SRT jurisdictional medical board.

What being in Palermo changes (and what it does not)

Palermo has two administrative peculiarities that come up often in consultations. Neither alters your rights.

Palermo is, on its own, Comuna 14

Law 1777 organized the City into fifteen comunas and Law 2650 set their final boundaries across the 48 neighborhoods. Palermo occupies the whole of Comuna 14 -it is the only neighborhood in it- and at roughly 15.6 km² it is the largest neighborhood in the City: that is why Palermo Soho, Palermo Hollywood, Las Cañitas and the Botanical Garden area share a single administrative unit. But comunas exercise administrative and neighborhood powers. They have no judicial or labor function. The comuna office does not take dismissal claims, does not approve settlements and does not interrupt deadlines.

Palermo is part of the Audiovisual District

City Law 3876 created the Audiovisual District in 2011, a 924-hectare area covering part of Palermo along with Chacarita, Villa Ortúzar, Paternal and Colegiales. Audiovisual companies based there obtain exemptions from Gross Income Tax, ABL, Stamp Tax and construction and delineation fees. Many workers at Palermo Hollywood production companies assume the regime reaches them. It does not: the benefits are tax benefits, and they belong to the company. A production company in the District answers for a dismissal exactly like any other employer in the City.

The collective agreement follows the activity, not the neighborhood

Palermo packs very different activities into a few blocks. The applicable collective agreement comes not from where the premises are but from the employer's activity and how your job is classified: in a restaurant or hotel, hospitality and restaurant workers; in clothing or design retail, retail workers. If part of your pay comes with no payslip, that is unregistered employment.

Common mistakes in claims from this area

• Suing in the City because you live in Palermo. If you worked in the province and the employer is domiciled there, the jurisdictional objection succeeds. Since the reform, moreover, the ruling rejecting it is appealable (section 108(d), as added by section 86 of Law 27.802): the incident drags on.
• Assuming SECLO is optional. Without proof that the stage was exhausted, the complaint is not admitted. The exceptions in section 2 of Law 24.635 are narrow: injunctions and interim relief, pre-trial evidence, crisis procedures, insolvent or bankrupt employers, claims against the State and claims by minors requiring the Public Prosecutor. See filing a labor lawsuit without SECLO.
• Going to SECLO over an accident. Accident and occupational disease claims do not go through pre-trial conciliation: they go to the medical board. Using the wrong entry point costs months.
• Letting the file sleep, or signing without a calculation. With case management on the parties and a six-month lapse at first instance, silence is no longer harmless. And an approved settlement is res judicata: it will not be reopened.
• Assuming the clock is not running. The limitation period is two years (section 256 of the Employment Contract Law). Filing at SECLO suspends it, but for six months at most even if the procedure is shorter (section 7 of Law 24.635 and Plenary Ruling 312 of the National Labor Court of Appeals). See labor limitation periods.

Frequently Asked Questions