The steps towards a dream fulfilled
Iberian Lawyer talks to Transfesa in-house lawyer Julia A. García Navarro about her career and the publication of her first novel, El año que pasamos jugando a no ser nosotros (The year we spent playing at not being us)
by julia gil
Julia Ángeles García Navarro, secretary of the board, legal, risk, insurance and compliance director of Transfesa, has always been passionate about reading. Ever since she was a child, she found refuge in books in Cordoba in the 1960s where entertainment was scarce. She grew up among the pages of Pedro Antonio de Alarcón and other great authors, and, without knowing it, she was building her own narrative voice. Over time, stories ceased to be just something she read and became something that she sought out. Her professional life took her down the path of law, but writing kept calling her until it finally led her to publish her first novel. “A writer does not pursue history, but history pursues him”, says García Navarro. Because, just as in fiction, in life, stories find us when we least expect them.
BETWEEN LAW AND STAGE
Why study law and drama? “The question is why I decided to do law”, explains García with a smile. Raised in a traditional Córdoba where the idea of studying only an artistic career was not an option, she was forced to choose a plan B. At 16, she was already studying for a degree in dramatic arts, but her father insisted that she should pursue a “normal” career. Law was a throwaway choice that soon turned into an unexpected passion. “I’m passionate about law”, García admits, “it’s a vocation I discovered by chance and after having tried another option”.
His training was as intense as it was varied: after completing his studies, he prepared himself for four years to sit the civil service exams for notaries and registries. A period that she remembers as hard, but which marked a differential factor in her career. “It was like a priesthood, but it gave me a knowledge of law that was three times that of my colleagues”. However, the competitive examination did not go as he had hoped, and after failing for the second time, he decided to change course and move to Madrid.
FROM THE COURTS TO BIG BUSINESS
In the capital, García Navarro began his career in a small law firm specialising in drug trafficking and serious crimes. “My first court case was the Nécora case”, he recalls. Suddenly, he found himself in the Audiencia Nacional, facing human dramas of enormous importance, where his clients were risking their freedom. Subsequently, he worked in another firm, EM Abogados, a more generalist firm, where he dealt with all kinds of cases, from criminal matters, through inheritance or divorce, to insolvency proceedings. “Unlike in a large firm where you start and give support, for seven years I saw all areas in the same office”, explains García.
But her curiosity and desire to learn led her to explore other sectors. From private law, she moved into the world of technology consulting with Capgemini, where she experienced the Y2K and the technology boom. During this period, García recalls that providing legal support in a context of lack of regulation was an exercise in constant creativity. “We were trendsetters in the legal field”, he says. As an anecdote from this period, García recalls that, until his arrival at the company, he had never had the opportunity to use a computer. “My first connection to the Internet was there, fortunately my intern Gonzalo F. Gállego (ed: currently a partner at Hogan Lovells) gave me some practical classes”, he explains with a laugh.
