Tell me a little bit about the firm and where it fits into the corporate legal landscape.
The firm was founded by my father in the mid-60s – 1965 to be exact. Originally it was nearly exclusively a litigation boutique focused on financial litigation working for banks and financial institutions. I joined the firm in 1992 after a brief experience in a multinational company in Paris. I worked for two and a half years for Disney in Paris.
Did you join the firm as a litigator?
I have a law degree, but I didn’t want to do my father’s job because I thought he worked too hard. Then I worked at Disney, and I thought that my father’s workload was a joke compared to what I was doing in-house. I decided that working for 13 or 14 hours a day was much better if you worked for yourself rather than under a boss.
My father let me join the firm, but I was not really the right kind of person for litigation. I was maybe too instinctive and too much into negotiating and obtaining good results for my clients. So while I did litigation for a few years, I looked around at what other firms were doing and where my skills would best fit in developing a corporate practice. These were the years here in Italy where all the big international firms were entering the market. Simmons, Linklaters, Freshfields had all just opened up and the American law firms were on their way. I started using the connections I had created in in the international environment at Disney and had my own ideas of what an alternative to these big firms could look like.
Then I got a lucky break. It’s important to be lucky now and again. I started following a little startup company in the medical devices’ world. It had already obtained some funding from some business angels and when I started working with them they enjoyed an incredible growth. From 1994 to 2005 I was doing a huge amount of acquisition negotiations and joint ventures around the world. This opened me to new connections with law firms around Europe and the US and gave me a very specific and deep knowledge in the life sciences, biotech, and medical devices’ market.
It was amazing to work with this one client to find new technologies from other startups around the world and introduce them into the Italian medical market. For example, my client was the one that introduced robotic surgery to Italy and made Italy the leading market in Europe for robotic surgery for many years. Germany has overtaken us now but that was relatively recently, five years or so ago. So I discovered the beauty of the corporate world and the firm grew its corporate department around my practice. My father kept on managing the litigation department and we grew from eight people to 15. Then my sister joined to open the tax department as she used to work in a big tax firm.
And then?
Then Julian Berger joined us in 2005 after Linklaters closed its Milan office. He shared my vision that good specialist law firms with good international experience could really compete with the big law firms. Together we struggled and we fought to implement this scenario based on one fundamental concept in our firm that work of any kind is done under the strict supervision or directly by partners. Coupled with extremely competitive rates, it made the firm a huge success. Then in 2012, Mascia Cassella joined and later we changed the name because Julian Berger retired. That’s where we are now, 30 or so people specialising in litigation, corporate and tax.
Do you consider the firm still to be a boutique Luca?
No. As a firm we now have a lot of ancillary practise areas, we do a lot of administrative law, property and regulatory work built around our core areas of corporate, commercial, litigation and tax. I don’t really like the concept of a boutique. I would consider it to be more like a bespoke law firm for our clients.
I’m very proud that we have never had any sort of spin-off or significant departures. The average tenure of our people is probably 17 years for the administrative staff and 15 years for the associates. No one ever left us to join other firms. We are careful to create a very favourable working environment. So, while we pay salaries which are a little lower than in the big international law firms, anyone working with us knows that they can have the time they need for themselves and their families.
The work/life balance is very important these days. You said you’ve had associates working with you for 15 years and they haven’t left the firm and they have still not made partner? Will they ever?
They know very well the position, are paid well, and have a good work/life balance. Also I do not stress on them to bring in their own clients or do their own work. There’s enough work brought in by me and the partners and our network. They’re paid very competitive salaries for their ages. They have no stress of partnership or of being linked strictly to the results of the firm, so they’re motivated by the quality of the work and the quality of life they have. I know they’re happy. No one cares about the status of being a senior associate rather than a partner because they have much more autonomy in my firm than they would have elsewhere. They would have to be partners in other law firms to get this. They are smart, and know the title counts for very little.
With regards to your personal practice, is that still comprised mainly corporate work focusing on biotech or has it expanded now?
Given the amount of work that this one client has generated over the last 30 years, I have been kept very busy. Imagine that when they started with me, their turnover was the equivalent of EUR 5 million when we still had the Lira and there were ten people working in the company. Now It’s a company with a turnover of more than EUR 400 million, operates in seven European countries with 650 people working around Europe. In recent years we made nine acquisitions and we sold three businesses. Every day one of my associates is fully with them on a sort of secondment. My time is spent 25% with them and 25% with other clients in the life sciences sector and then 50% with other clients in other sectors ranging from the fashion industry, new technologies, traditional industry, food, more or less everything.
Has Brexit impacted on your work at all?
Unfortunately yes, because we used to get a lot of work from England especially because Julian, with his connections in the UK as a former Linklaters partner, had been able to create a lot of very close contacts within the UK. With Brexit, we saw two things happening: very few Italian businesses investing in the UK and basically no UK investment in Italy. So yes, it impacted us, but we were lucky because Brexit also meant that many people turned away from England, particularly the French. And so we got a lot of work from people moving their businesses from England to Italy. Because Italy, as a result of Brexit, implemented a very favourable tax regime for wealthy individuals and businesses that had moved outside Italy or outside Europe and decided to come back here to work. We saw a lot of people coming back and we work for them both on the tax aspect and the wealth management side of things and of course, corporate investments too. The loss of turnover from UK businesses was compensated by businesses moving away from the UK. I used to go to London at least twice a year, but I haven’t been in London since before COVID as I never had a business opportunity to go to London since then.
Are you seeing any trends developing in Italy? Any practice areas or industry sectors growing or are things slowing down in some places?
I think Italy, especially in connection with the recovery plan which has been implemented after COVID is seeing many industries being boosted, and this obviously includes life sciences, renewable energies, food, wine, and environmental issues. There’s also a lot of business going on in construction. These sectors are booming. There’s a little bit of difficulty in the financial world, a little bit of difficulty in the traditional high tech world and traditional SMEs are losing a bit of ground. These were once the heart of the Italian economy. Traditional shops and businesses like that are suffering under pressure from online retailers and the big commercial centres and shopping malls.
And is the current political landscape in Italy having an impact on business?
I voted for this government so I’m not particularly critical of it. And there’s one positive thing which nobody can deny. This is the first government in nearly 20 years which was actually and truly elected by the people. It has a majority for the first time in nearly 20 years, rather than being composed of a coalition which nobody voted for. These successive coalitions led to a long period of let’s say fake political stability. However, this government is in a very particular and probably unlucky situation because it now has to spend all the money that Europe is sending to Italy on a recovery plan and projects which were approved by other governments. Another issue is it’s a right of centre government and in Italy, despite 70 odd years having passed, if you’re a liberal or right-wing politician, you’re still considered a friend of Mussolini! So, this government has challenges but overall the political situation is stable and stability is always good for business.
In terms of the sectors that are booming – renewables, healthcare, food and so on, where is investment coming from? Is it local or foreign? Is there much Chinese investment for example?
Businesses in those sectors are benefiting from all the monies coming from Europe. From the European Community. And then it’s government spending and the government paying private companies to build infrastructures to sell technologies, to create projects with the government. The money in these sectors is mostly provided from the European Union. But Chinese investments in Italy are still quite limited, we don’t see a real Chinese invasion. We are seeing, after many years of stagnation, the private equity and the venture capital word investing again in Italy. The fact that the interest rates have been very low is a big advantage, especially for private equity funds. There’s still a lot of money coming from the traditional banking system. A lot of M&A and many leveraged buyouts.
What’s the best thing about living and working in Milan?
Well I am a Milanese. I’m very proud of my city. Why is Milan the best place to live in the world? Inter Milan FC! We are 100 km from the mountains 100km from the seaside and 50km from the lakes. It’s easy to get away from the city and get to beautiful places, breathe pure mountain, sea or lake air. The city is bursting with new projects, new investments, new activities; it’s very international, there’s plenty of international students, plenty of international business people, it’s a very secure and safe city. There’s a lot of a lot of culture too, not like Rome, but a lot of, let’s say, modern culture, a lot of culture coming from traditional Italian businesses, because now fashion is part of culture, food and agriculture are developing as a new form of culture in Italy. So every place that opens in Milan brings some aspect of culture, whether in business, in fashion or the food sector. And unlike in Rome there’s not a lot of traffic. It’s a city where 1.3 million people live, so not so much. But in the suburbs, there are 4.5 to 5 million people. But still the city centre is not overloaded with people.
I know you come from a legal family with your sister and your father both lawyers. But why did you get into law? Was it because it’s the family business?
Oh no. I studied law because I wanted to become a diplomat. That was my dream when I was a kid. Then when I started studying, I got a passion for international law. But as I said, I wanted to try something different before doing the same job as my father did, and so I went to work in the human resources department for Disney in Paris for two years.
That job was a great life experience, meeting a lot of people from all over the world. Fantastic. It opened my eyes to different cultures, different people, different social environments. Being in human resources, I was dealing mainly with labour and employment issues and this wasn’t ideal for me. Then I met my wife in Paris and she suggested I went back to my father’s firm and start a new career there. She was right! The corporate environment has fascinated me ever since.
So if it wasn’t law, was it going to be the diplomatic service for you?
Yes, it would have been. I was fascinated by the diplomatic world. There were three things I was I was thinking of ideally: the United Nation, the European Commission or an humanitarian organisation. But in college the advice from professors highlighted how complicated the career path was. And despite the fact that I love travelling and have lived abroad I wanted to be based in Milan. I am Inter Milan through and through – it’s my first love. Even when I lived in Paris, every other Sunday I drove the 900 kilometres to go to Milan and see Inter’s home football matches.
What would you say is a particular professional highlight?
There are a couple of moments I remember with great joy. One is the first big international litigation I handled. We settled with very favourable terms for my client. This was in 1998, I was 31. I flew back to Milan and opened my computer when I got to the office and had an e-mail from the judge in Indiana congratulating me for the great job I had done in making sure that the settlement could happen in the terms we agreed. Now in Italy if you manage to talk three words with the judge, you’re glad. I printed the letter and showed it to my father who told me to frame it as it would probably be the only communication like this that I would ever receive from a judge. And actually, that remains the case to this day!
And the second one is not a huge deal, but I was working opposite one of the most reputable Italian corporate firms and next to me was one of their senior partners, who was about to retire and he said, well, I think you’d be the perfect person to replace me here.
Jumping back to work again and about the structure and how you organise your firm. One of the key topics now when running a law firm is diversity and inclusion. How is that affecting you there?
It doesn’t affect us because we’ve always been very diverse and very inclusive. My former wife, who still works in the firm, comes from the Caribbean we have employed for years an African guy. We have always proudly employed homosexual people. People who fought pro bono for the rights of kids coming from homosexual relationships despite Italian law not allowing it. We have more female partners than male partners and more female associates than male associates. We have always been a meritocracy and therefore have not had to artificially create things to tick diversity boxes.