Q&A with Simone Carra

As a flexible lawyer, you are the brand, the product, and the business. It is about simplicity and success.

A well-known name in the labour law space, Simon Carrá joins LEXITUP, following a 12-year period he spent collaborating with some of the largest labour firms in Italy. He talks about why he became a flexible lawyer, what are his differentiating factors and the emerging topics in labour law.

What made you decide to become a flexible Lawyer?

Each lawyer has their own personality, values, principles, and personal aims. While legal expertise is paramount; it is the lawyer – client experience that is appreciated by any client.

BigLaw has several advantages, especially providing clients access to legal expertise across the world and offering full-scale service. However, as a Senior Lawyer or Partner, you easily can fall under time and fee constraints. Furthermore, managing burn out and training associates can also be a challenge.

While as a flexible lawyer, you are the brand, the product, and the business. It is about simplicity and success.

I realized through my practice that the legal industry is transforming, and so is the paradigm of what it means to be a successful lawyer.  I considered looking beyond what the traditional law firm model could offer.  In April of 2022, I started my own practice and joined the flexible workplace revolution. Since then, I have more control over the amount and type of legal work I do.

How would you define yourself as a lawyer?

I am a result-driven lawyer, with a highly practical approach.  Each day I improve my expertise with continuous professional development and research activities.

I aim to be a partner for my clients, not only their lawyer. I like to spend most of my time at their offices, immersing in their culture. I seek to understand how all company processes work to try to find not only the right legal solutions for the business needs, but also to anticipate issues.

My clients call me not only for labour matters but to ask for advice on how to deal with company processes and organization. This underpins the relevance of the trust relationship that we create together.

What about your specialization?

As an employment law specialist, you need to have the widest possible experience in labour law, to be able to assess your case from all possible angles and perspectives. Lawyers need to see nuances.

Employment law is constantly developing and requires constant up-to-date knowledge versus other slower evolving areas of law. As such, diligent practitioners are accustomed to assimilating and retaining large volumes of potentially complex information.

The scope and scale of my matters can be complex such as: closure of a big tour operator with hundreds of employees; the closure of a large industrial plant with hundreds of employees in the automotive sector; the acquisition of going concerns with hundreds of employees in the interest of a multinational company in the glass sector; the achievement of a national Unions agreement to regulate a specific sector for digital platforms with thousands of collaborators; the achievement of a Unions agreement for social shock absorbers for a very important brand in the fashion sector, judicial cases, also concerning top managers and directors.

Which are the next borders of labour law in the upcoming years?

The pandemic changed the approach to work and employment matters significantly, including advising clients on the potential benefits of a different organization of the workplace, making the company organization more efficient, focusing on long term individual incentives, increasing profitability, and reducing labour costs.

For individuals, covid changed their location, mobility, career plans, and life circumstances. Flexible practitioners, like me also emerged partially due to the pandemic. From personal motivations to professional ones, working flexibly is appealing for many reasons and provides you more control and flexibility over the amount and type of legal work you do, and essentially clients are the first ones benefitting from this approach.

Finally, we should expect a more diverse range of employment legislation to come into effect for more sustainable employment practices. There is public pressure for greater sustainability, and workplace demands for more transparency.

Companies must be prepared to deal with changes in employment and labour law from these perspectives.