FUNCIONAMIENTO DE LOS DESPACHOS DE ABOGADOS.

Abstract

Law firms, which are professional partnerships with legal personality of their own, give rise to a type of organisation that has some special features in comparison to other sorts of partnerships. These special features stem from the purpose of a law firm, which means, to begin with, that a law firm must be organised such as not to curtail the principles that characterise professional practice and, more specifically, the freedom and independence with which professional partners must perform their professional activity in the firm, nor the specific principles of each profession, such as the client/attorney secret in the law. Furthermore, an attorney who joins a law firm does so with the intention of reaping certain profits to enable him or her to deal with daily economic needs, so periodic remuneration for the partners from the firm's earnings must be envisaged. Both of these aspects, management and a share in the firm's profits, are analysed below in what may be regarded as a general theory of professional partnerships. Afterwards, the regulations contained in the State Statute of Spanish Legal Practice and the Code of Catalan Legal Practice are seen, with a review of what the recently passed Professional Partnerships Bill has to say about these aspects as well.