The Faculty of Law and the Faculty of Humanities, coordinated by Ricardo María Jiménez and Maria Mut, have organised the third International Legal Language Meeting. The meeting was held Thursday, 25 May, in the UIC Barcelona Saló de Graus, and aimed to reflect on and discuss the use of legal language in other countries and in companies.
The first module, “Legal language of lawyers in Argentina and Mexico: issues and challenges,” featured presentations by two international legal language experts. Gabriela Cid de León, lawyer, undergraduate degree in Law from the Universidad Panamerican and a postgraduate degree in Civil Law and Contracts from the University of Salamanca; and Carmen de Cucco Alconada, lawyer and doctoral candidate in Legal Sciences.
Cid de León stressed the importance of using clear language and warned of the commercial strength of using ambiguous language and how this can become a means for corruption. Both speakers also evaluated implementation of knowledge on legal language in other faculties such as Communication, where journalists specialised in the legal field need to understand the sector to offer broad, clear and truthful information.
The second module, “Management before laws and regulations,” featured three more speakers: Juan Mosquera, head of Sustainability at ISDIN, UIC Barcelona Business Adminstration and Managament (ADE) graduate; Pablo Franquet, lawyer and partner in the Banking Litigation and Procedural Department at Fieldfisher España commercial law firm; and Félix Navas, lawyer in the M&A Department at AGM Abogados law firm, undergraduate degree in law from UPF and Double Master’s Degree (Law and Business Law) from the University of Navarra.
Mosquera explained the communicative problem between lawyers and stressed the importance of people's proactivity to establish the use of a code that best suits each context. “We must be able to transfer the same information to anyone and, regardless of whether they know or don’t know legal language, and they be able to understand it,” Franquet added.
At the end of each module, the speakers answered questions asked by onsite attendees and by those attending via video conference.
The Meeting is part of the Research Group of the Generalitat de Catalunya (2021 SGR 01336), “Rights, Agenda 2030 Sustainable recovery in Catalonia (RESCATE 2030)”, and is part of the R+D+i project PID2021-124298OB-I00, funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/: Project PID2021-124298OB-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/ and by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) A way to make Europe “Global law and health crises: Towards a global instrument to protect against future pandemics (CONCOPAN).”
