The 3rd International Trade Fair of the Legal Profession was held on the 29th and 30th of January 2015 with a clear objective: to promote the internationalization of law firms in Barcelona in a context of crisis and globalization.
Representatives from 17 cities gathered in the ICAB training center to expand their networks of contacts and show their professional world.
The then President of the Barcelona Bar Association, Oriol Rusca, opened the event.
The Second International Trade Fair of the Legal Profession promoted Lawyers’ ‘professional partnerships’
The second edition of the International Legal Trade Fair, held from the 13th to the 15th of February 2013 in Barcelona, achieved its main objective: to promote professional ‘partnerships’.
The Barcelona Bar Association (ICAB) prioritized providing tools to Barcelona Based lawyers, to facilitate the creation of synergies with professional lawyers from other countries especially in a context of economic crisis, which was that of the time.
During two days of working sessions at the Shipyards, participant lawyers had the opportunity to expand their contacts, learn how to negotiate in other countries, improve the management of the firm, and construct alliances beneficial to both parties.
Many of the lawyers who participated in the first edition of the fair were in attendance at the event. From Morocco, Argentina and Mexico, in addition to European colleagues coming from different parts of Spain and Portugal, France, Germany, Switzerland and Britain.
Speed networking-most requested activity
‘Speed Networking’, an activity designed to quickly integrate and familiarize lawyers was again the busiest of the Fair. Each round had a total of 24 people, about 12 couples who had four minutes to explain the essentials in order to define and seek “their professional partnership.” After this time, one of the participants moved to the next chair and so on until they reached the place where they had started the activity.
The plenary sessions of the Fair was headed by Tony Williams, director of a major consulting firm specializing in international management and Miguel Angel Perez of La Manga. The first talked about how to manage small and medium businesses in a global world, while the latter reflected on international networking in small and medium sized law firms.
Conference ‘Networking around the World’
In addition, one of the highlights of the program of the Fair was the series of presentations ‘Networking around the World’, where practicing lawyers in several countries explained different ways of living the profession, of managing an office, dealing with customers, investing, and taking advantage of the crisis.
Presentations included “Doing business in Chicago”, exploiting the opportunities offered by Latin America in the legal field. And more: working in the legal ambit in London, how to manage international legal networking (speaker from Rotterdam). One speaker even spoke about law in a time of Crisis (A Speaker from Athens), Law of investment (Zurich) and “What are the peculiarities of the legal profession in Milan?”, throughout the two-day fair.
The first International Trade Fair if the Legal Profession gathered more than 400 law firms from 26 countries
The internationalization of law in Barcelona took a big step forward thanks to the first Legal Trade Fair of Europe and the Mediterranean Basin, which was held at the Drassanes Reials from 2nd to 4th February 2011 and was a successful event.
This first edition of the fair was intended to facilitate the internationalization of the legal profession through networking and to allow exchanges of experiences, create synergies, share business opportunities and improve the management of the offices of the city.
Under the organization of the Barcelona Bar Association, the event exceeded expectations both for the number of participants of different nationalities who attended and for the positive feedback they gave regarding the activities.
Successful participation
For two and a half days, this event brought together more than 400 law firms and individual lawyers with full registration, and more than 100 lawyers in the form of access participants (access to the fair only in the afternoon).
Of the total enrolment, more than half were foreign firms. Specifically, lawyers from 26 countries, among whom were many professionals from Spain, Australia, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Morocco, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, The United Kingdom, The United Arab Emirates, The United States and Venezuela.
Speed networking, SMS, chat ‘Face to Face’ and more
The program of the First Legal Trade Fair was wide and varied, and focused on activities to promote networking among lawyers and other legal professionals. Among the most popular were the speed networking sessions where lawyers could concur quickly with each other in seated pairs and explain their activities for a limited time of only five minutes.
It also highlighted the short message service or SMS, which served as the lawyers of different nationalities sent their ad, which was published in a screen- automatically and the applicant replied to arrange a meeting face to face . Through this method the lawyers could speak with more precision and without time limit, to reach the goals of internationalization of their office.
In addition, meetings by specialty -Commercial, Civil, Real Estate, Tax, International, Labor and Generally- were exploited by lawyers to make contacts.
In parallel we conducted lectures on various subjects that were able to help lawyers better manage the firms such as marketing firms and consumer protection legal products i.e. Compatibility and incompatibility with the legal profession, certification an ISO 9001 quality management and negotiation techniques.
Collaborating organizations
The First Legal Trade Fair of Europe and the Mediternean Basin had the collaboration of the Barcelona City Council, the Chamber of Commerce, the Catalan Governament, Alter mútua and the Barcelona Maritime Museum.
It was also possible thanks to the following participating companies: Aquaeba; Thomson Reuters Aranzadi; Axesor; Bosch; Cafè para todos; Ditec Comunicaciones; Dualia; Evidentia, investigación judicial; Francis Lefebrvre; Grupo el derecho; Infolex; Informa; Iurisdoc; Keldenich; La Ley-Grupo wolters kluwer; Level Programs; Lex nova; Peritos judiciales forenses; Associació catalana de pèrits judicials forenses; Ricoh; Editorial Sepin; Software internacional; Sudespacho.net; Editorial tirant lo Blanch; Tribunal Arbitral de Barcelona; i Barclays.
And these associations: European Association of lawyers; AIJA, British Spanish Law Association; Barreau Pénal International Criminal Bar; Consell de Col·legis d’Advocats de Catalunya; Asociación Hispano-Alemana de Juristas; Academy of Europea Law; FBE; Leeds Legal, Union des Avocats Européens; Union Internationale des avocats, Iberian Lawyer i Euromed