ICAM Cortina Foundation to promote the legal profession

The first meeting of the new Board of Trustees of the ICAM Cortina Foundation, the body that will manage, with a renewed structure, the social and cultural activities of the largest professional association in Europe, is being held at the headquarters of the Madrid Bar Association today.

Together with el decano Eugenio Ribón (chairman of the Foundation) and its Board of Directors, leaders of the largest Spanish and international law firms, multidisciplinary service firms, the heads of the main publishing houses and legal think tanks, academic personalities and representatives of the main international lawyers’ associations and Madrid’s legal profession have participated in the re-foundation of a plural and committed entity, which will count on a budget of close to 1.8 million euros in the coming year to promote its objectives.

Eugenio Ribón has expressed his satisfaction at achieving one of the outstanding objectives of his governing programme: “ICAM was born as a fellowship and among its aims was mutual aid and working for social justice. This Board is deeply committed to that mission. Therefore, we promised to relaunch and promote the social work of the Association, represented in the ICAM Cortina Foundation, providing it with more and better resources, and carrying out specific actions aimed at positioning it as a reference in the sector, as well as ensuring its sustainability with a modern and efficient management. Today begins this new stage, to better serve our colleagues, first and foremost, and also society”.

“In this new era, the ICAM Cortina Foundation is based on two key ideas: ‘Helping more, helping better’ and the firm intention that the Madrid Bar Association should be close to its members ‘when they need it most’,” explains Ana Buitrago, member of the ICAM Governing Board responsible for the social area and Vice-President of the Foundation.

Thanks to the modernisation of its management, Buitrago adds, the Foundation “takes on a new impetus” to achieve renewed objectives that are also in line with the aims that led to the creation of the Association 427 years ago: “to enable mutual help among its members and work for a fairer society”.

In addition to creating an impact on society and making the social commitment of the legal profession visible, the ICAM Cortina Foundation collaborates with social entities through its network of more than 1,300 volunteers.

Under the honorary presidency of Antonio Garrigues, the new Board of Trustees is made up of representatives from all areas of the legal sector. From the main national and international law firms and multidisciplinary service firms to the most important international lawyers’ associations and those representative of the diverse reality of the Madrid legal profession, as well as major publishing houses and leading think tanks, the new ICAM Cortina Foundation has managed to involve the entire sector in the most important social project in this professional field in a cross-cutting manner.

The new Board of Trustees includes the law firms Allen & Overy, Broseta, Ceca Magan, Clifford Change, Cuatrecasas, Garrigues, Gómez Acebo & Pombo, Latham & Watkins, Linklaters, ONTIER, Pérez Llorca, Sagardoy, Uría Menéndez and White Case. Also participating are multidisciplinary service firms such as EY and KPMG, the publishing houses Aranzadi La Ley, Lefevbre and Tirant, the FIDE Foundation and renowned personalities from the academic world, as well as the presidents of the IBA and the UIA.Likewise, the so-called stand-up and in-court representation have their place on the new board thanks to the presence of the associations ALA (Asociación Libre de Abogadas y Abogados), the Asociación de Letrados por un Turno de Oficio Digno (ALTODO) and the Asociación Nacional de Laboralistas (ASNALA).