Spanish law schools that produce the current leaders of today’s in-house market
Iberian Lawyer’s In-House Club new Study highlights the educational trends of the In-House Counsel of the country’s largest companies.
Iberian Lawyer’s In-House Club has launched the first Study in Spain to look in-depth at the Iberian In-House legal market. Of the 200 General Counsel and Heads of Legal invited to participate, over 90 percent responded, representing 85% of the IBEX 35 and other domestic companies with a turnover of over €300m.
As part of the Study, In-House Counsel were asked which law school they attended for their undergraduate studies (in 1991/1992). The reason for this was so as to determine the law schools that produce the Heads of the Legal of today’s largest Spanish companies.
An analysis of the data collected shows that interestingly, the top three law school are state run, followed by the top three private.
Of the six most mentioned law schools, four are in Madrid, which could be due to its higher population and the concentration of legal services in Spain’s capital. The next region to train the top lawyers is in the north of Spain ─ Navarra and País Vasco.
In-House Counsel were also asked whether they took any post-graduate studies and if so, at which institution.
89% of In-House Counsel had taken some form of post-graduate study and most had done so at the IE. IESE, ESADE and ICADE came in a close second and joint third. In this case, the top three were all privately run institutions with a global reach. The UK’s King’s College came in fourth place, the first non-Spanish institution to be selected for their advance studies.
The Study’s conclusions shed a light on the In-House Lawyer market in Spain as has never been done before. And it was sponsored by GdGESTION, Cuatrecasas Goncalves, Pereira, Ecija, Garrigues, Linklaters and Pérez-Llorca.
Iñigo Cisneros, Head of Legal at GESE Holding and coordinator of the Study in collaboration with Iberian Lawyer, stated that times have changed dramatically, and In-House Counsel must now adopt a business approach to the management and contracting of legal services. “The findings of the Study demonstrate the way forward for law firms in order to achieve the most productive relationships with in-house legal departments.”
In many cases, the type of advance educational programmes selected by those leading In-House Counsel had a strong managerial element.
And the key, says Cisneros, centres around effectiveness and creativity. Among others, the Study addressed issues such as the shifting pricing models, increasing use of fixed budgets, the emergence of ‘paralegals’ and ‘secondments’, the importance of compliance, trends in outsourcing and the selection criteria of external offices.
To access the Executive Summary of the Study (in Spanish), please click here
