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OUR
HISTORY
The
Firm has its origins in the Law Firm
established in 1945 by Laureano López
Rodó and other University Professors
and practicing Lawyers. After the
first ten years of professional practice,
López Rodó began a new
era of civil service.
From
the Technical Secretariat of the Presidency
he promoted the Reform and Modernization
of the Spanish Public Administration.
Laureano López Rodó
played a high-profile role in a generation
of law experts that, for that very
reason, believed in the Rule of Law.
Many of the administrative laws championed
by López Rodó made a
remarkable contribution to this aim:
Ley de Régimen Jurídico
de la Administración del Estado
(1957), Ley de Procedimiento Administrativo
(1958), Ley de Funcionarios Civiles
del Estado (1964), to name a few,
contributed to promote efficiency
and guaranteeing legality in administrative
action, state liability in damages
caused by the operation of public
services, judicial review on the legality
of administrative action, etc. The
high technical quality of these Laws
and the legal base that supported
them become evident by the fact that
the promulgation of the Spanish Constitution
of 1978 did not affect their validity
in any way. Beyond the different modifications
and a repeals that have taken effect
over the years, the principles these
Laws established still remain in our
National Law as a fundamental centerpiece
of the Rule of law.
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As
Minister for Development, López
Rodó coordinated the different
teams that drafted and promoted
the first three Plans that contributed
to the convergence of Spain's
social and economic development
to the levels of other European
nations. During this stage, and
also as Minister of Foreign Affairs,
he had a very active role in the
institutional reforms implemented
to make possible the designation
of Don Juan Carlos de Borbón
as the successor to the Head of
State with the title of King.
In the Constituent Parliament,
he was a Deputy for Barcelona
and worked in the drafting of
the Constitution of 1978 and of
the first Statute of Autonomy
of Catalonia.
In
1979, López Rodó
returned to his University Chair
and to the private practice of
Law.
In
1983, Juan de la Cruz Ferrer,
one of his first students, joined
the Firm after obtaining his degree
as Doctor in Law.
Later
on, the rest of the actual partners
also joined in, José Ignacio
Juárez Chicote, Ángeles
Luengo López y María
Jesús Rodríguez
García. And thus, there
started a new era in the life
of the Firm, other University
Professors and Lawyers joined
the Firm gradually, opening new
areas of professional specialization
and collaboration agreements with
other reputed Firms both in Spain
and abroad.
We
must make a specific case of the
participation of the different
partners of the Firm in the processes
of liberalization and economic
neo-regulation undertaken by the
European Community from the early
nineties in industries such as
energy, transportation, telecommunications
or postal services. As a result
of his specialization and the
studies and research papers on
the new regulation of these industries,
the European Commission named
Juan de la Cruz Ferrer Professor
Jean Monnet of European Law, to
develop a module for the teaching
of "The regulation and liberalization
of Services of General Interest
in the European Union". In
the context of this project, he
would establish, in 2006, the
European Centre for Regulation
and Competition, providing a venue
for meeting, discussing and supporting
the research and training efforts
of local, Latin-American and Central
and Eastern European professionals.
In
the year 2004, Madrid's Univesidad
Complutense paid homage to the
figure and the works of López
Rodó, publishing a volume
of its collectable "Maestros
Complutenses del Derecho"
in which fifty prominent professionals
from different fields of activity
- legal experts, economists, academicians…
- tell of the capacities and achievements
of an individual whose professional
stature and merits grow larger
with the passage of time.
Those
of us fortunate enough to have
met Laureano López Rodó
and who have learnt with him know
that he was a Statesman, an exceptional
law expert, a tireless and rigorous
worker, with demanding ethics
and a very unique ability to build
working teams and human networks.
All of these attributes are an
integral part of his legacy and
help explain the values of the
Firm and our understanding of
the practice of law.
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"Blessed…
he who has known a master because he will
learn to think according to law and culture.
He would have enjoyed, among other things,
the exemplary and enriching spectacle
of the science to be made, instead of
the already done science that books usually
deliver. Who learns science from a book
is in danger of becoming escientist, or
dogmatic about what we already know; whom,
on the other hand, receives the lesson
from the master, will know how to remain
humanistic because he won't forget the
relationship between the product and the
human that decides and creates; and thus,
he will hold the cult of the creative
spirit, and not the sterilizing superstition
of result".
Eugenio
D'Ors, "Xenius, Flos sophorum. Ejemplario
de la vida de los grandes sabios".
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