Gianmatteo Nunziante, Nunziante Magrone law firm’s founder, tells his legal career
To hold a strong last name and to start again from scratch is possible. Without looking for the challenge at any risk and taking wholly care of the clients
Also for a lawyer it is difficult to keep a relaxed and natural attitude, considering the camera relied on, and for overcoming the certain embarrassment it is necessary to think about something pleasant, relaxing. Suddenly Gianmatteo Nunziante’s look lights up, his face stretches out and it opens in a blessed smile. Once the routine clicks ended, here comes our first question: what was he thinking about? "About little Hortensia...". And the eyes return to shine while he is telling about his children, about his family. He got married when he was only 27 years old. "It was a true love at first sight, I knew my wife to a party and one year and a half after we got married already, I was afraid she could changed her mind, she was very courted, and my mother-in-law preferred that we should have waited...". It’s easy to understand the reason. Although Gianmatteo Nunziante was Gianni’s son, the well-known "Ughi e Nunziante" law firm’s founder lawyer, and he represents the sixth generation of lawyers, he had chosen to start again from scratch. "I have worked just for one day in my father’s law firm. Many have thought about a "generational rebellion", or a pride case or who knows what kind of conflict was it about.
Actually, who knows both of us also knows that this was the most natural choice, but also the less obvious one. We are contrary to any type of nepotism, active and passive ones; I would not have tolerated belonging to a law firm just for its name and often who practices into its family law firm doesn't learn as much as it can. However, there isn’t any rule, there are cases where working in the same law firm works, others, instead, where is better that father and child remain separate. The main point is to make things being natural, mature, without adopting challenge attitudes. I have not succeeded in learning the technicalities from my father, but his way of handing regarding the career, I have been through it as a child, and still today, even at lunch, we often confront each other on general matters. However we never delve into details, it is a matter of respect toward the clients and the respective partners: we still rest competitor." Nunziante tells us the historical cases that have marked his career as the Coca-Cola one in Tirana, for falsifications, or the other clients’ one that were operating in Albania: “The adventurous climate, the unforeseen event, the way of interpreting the feat were fascinating me." But the turning point was Liverpool fund, where it was required to defend the minority shareholders in Sai-Fondiaria event: "A dispute that still drags out, that had allowed me to match against intelligence rank colleagues, had made me discover a seam of law of which I became keen of, because it mixes the high finance professional aspect with the minorities’ guardianship ethical aspect. The "idealistic" coil that must characterize the profession had jumped out. You see, today because of the crisis the "extraordinary" operations have returned to be the exception and not the rule, the relationship with the client is finally recovering, a continuous and not sporadic relationship, also from the human point of view. Very often happens that the “senior” partner sees the client only when he enters the law firm for the first time, then the collaborators take care. I don't like it this way. I want to be present, I want to make him feel protected, "cuddled", it is the most difficult but also the most beautiful part of the job. To understand the client completely, it is necessary to have a whole view, law included, and therefore to itemize, leaning against specialist partner and not to open centers all over the world. It is a general approach, perhaps a countertrend one, that I have learned when I worked in London, at Slaughter and May, one of the five law firms that once formed the 'Magic Circle', but I deeply believe in it and in the long run it rewards." A binding philosophy that however allows him to live all-accomplished the clients. As British School at Rome, an active art academy in the archaeology domain, with whom, next to the consultation for the maintenance and renovation of Ercolano excavations’sponsorship, it organizes a show on the occasion of the Christmas cocktail in the Roman office. But the passion for art is another inheritance, on the maternal line this time, that in Salerno was making majolica and plates with characteristic floral drawings.The same that Nunziante learned to paint with watercolor during the university, sheltering himself in the house of Ravello, where he still spends his holidays among "the perfume of lemons, family memories, the roots, the floral ceramics..." hoping, one day, "to have the strength, the courage and the time" to continue another tradition of family. Obviously, restarting from scratch and in its own way.