Paolo Montironi is one of the most recognized and appreciated business lawyers on the Italian scene. Together with Alberto Toffoletto and Negri-Clementi, he founded Nctm in 2000, today part of ADVANT, the first European Swiss-verein. Well-known in the sector for his strongly entrepreneurial approach, which has led him to revolutionize the way law firms are run by adopting a management structure similar to that of a company, throughout his career Mr. Montironi has always invested in innovation ─ as evidenced by ADVANT’s award-winning projects UniQLegal and Next Legal ─ and internationalization, of which ADVANT is the greatest success. Below is a Leader League’s interview with ADVANT Nctm’s founding partner.
Leaders League: Why did you decide to become a lawyer?
Paolo Montironi: I was not born into the profession nor have I ever wished to be a lawyer. I can say I came to this life almost by chance. In fact, I decided to study Law because I did not have a clear idea of what I wanted to do when I grew up and believed that Law would give me a variety of career opportunities.
Actually, my real passion at that time was tennis, which I taught full time during my university studies. During those years, I founded and ran a tennis school, which was immediately successful and is still running today. Such experience led me to develop an entrepreneurial approach, which has turned out to be very useful throughout my career.
What were the beginnings of your career in the legal world?
In the beginning, I mainly dealt with compensation for car accident damage and debt collection. Honestly, such activities were not particularly stimulating, and only a few months after I started looking around to find a legal area that may really catch my interest. I focused my attention on the M&A sector, which at that time was in its early days. I suppose I was fascinated by its international character.
I sent my CV to specialist firms and was lucky enough to be engaged by the firm of lawyer Negri-Clementi. It was a real turning point in my career, because I had the privilege of working on a daily basis alongside the founding partner, who devoted a lot of time to me, sharing his wealth of experience and skills gained over the years. Working with a professional of that caliber ignited a passion in me, and for the first time I realized I was cut out for this work and could do it successfully. I even became a partner before I was a solicitor, before passing the bar exam.
In the meantime, the firm was growing too and we were looking for initiatives that may allow us to make the leap in quality needed to compete at the highest level of the Italian market. In the 1990s we first merged with the US firm Graham & James for some time, before becoming independent again; then we partnered with Ashurst, becoming their Italian correspondent firm for some time.
And this led to the establishment of Nctm, I suppose.
Nctm was born in 2000 from the merger of Studio Negri-Clementi, Montironi and Studio Toffoletto, one of the most important and prestigious firms in the field of labor law. It was a project that I, together with Alberto Toffoletto, had strongly desired and that I had followed personally, believing that the future of legal assistance would be a 'full-service' firm, a one-stop shop, in which each department could develop autonomously without being ancillary to the reference practice areas of other large firms (above all, M&A and Banking & Finance).
The choice of the name, Nctm, an acronym of the initials of its founders, is no coincidence, because at that time almost all firms' names included the surnames of their founding lawyers, which obviously caused various problems at the time of the generational transition or in the event of internal disputes. Instead, the idea from the outset had been to create a firm more akin to a company, one with a recognizable brand that would outlive its founders and not closely linked to just one or two partners.
That is why our first logo’s lettering stylistically recalled that of the famous SPQR of ancient Rome. In the beginning, we only dealt with civil law, labor law, corporate consulting, M&A and litigation, but we slowly began to build a reputation that led us to expand to include many other practice areas. What differentiated us from our competitors was the average age of our partners (38), which was definitely young in a market characterized by more senior professionals. Starting from this solid base, an acquisition campaign began, through lateral hirings, aimed at bringing into the firm professionals with expertise in different legal areas in order to progressively broaden our range of services.
How did the ADVANT project come about?
The creation of ADVANT was a logical consequence of the growth path we had been on up to that stage. After years full of acknowledgments and satisfaction, we were aware that we had achieved a high level of success in the Italian market, which begged the question: what’s next? We knew that going further at local level would be very complex, and it soon became clear that international expansion was the best path to sustaining growth.
After opening offices in London and in China, we found ourselves at a crossroads. Our options were either to be taken over by a major international firm, perhaps a UK or US firm, which would actually lead Nctm to an end, losing our brand, or to create a network with law firms in other countries.
The first way would have been the easiest option for us, since we would no longer shoulder the burden of being the 'originator', but simply limit ourselves to working for clients and cases provided by the 'parent company', but we rejected this option, which would have meant discarding more than 10 years hard work we had put into building up the Nctm brand in Italy. The firm was our creation and it was our intention to carry on with our vision and ideas. So, we decided to take the much more difficult and risky path, trying to forge alliances with foreign firms.
In this sense, Brexit came to our rescue in 2016 because it helped crystalize the purpose of our project. Once Britain decided to leave the EU, it seemed logical for us to invest in a European network that would bring together only continental European firms. We had already been actively collaborating with German firm Beiten Burkhardt, and so we focused our attention on finding a suitable French firm, a search that eventually led to Altana, a partnership which has proven to be a great success.
What is your international reach after the creation of this association?
ADVANT was officially launched in September 2021, but the evolution process is obviously still ongoing. The different practice areas of the three firms are getting to know each other and, especially working together by coordinating their activities and sharing their clients and information. Our goal is to reach a point in our integration where we can present ourselves to the market exclusively as ADVANT with no more references to Nctm, Beiten or Altana.
We believe that our strong point is our business proposition, which is to provide clients with a high-level legal service, with an international approach and with the same quality as the best Anglo-Saxon firms, yet with prices absolutely in line with each national market. Moreover, I would like to emphasize that the ADVANT project is only in its infancy, and the future involvement of other countries has not been ruled out ─ and indeed is desirable ─ in order to make our partnership ever more European.
You are also very active in the legal-tech sector. Can you tell us more about your projects?
We have invested a lot in legal-tech and smart documentation systems. It is a process we undertook thanks to Alberto Toffoletto, who was well ahead of the curve in Italy in acknowledging the importance of digital tools as support and enhancement to the work of lawyers in today’s world. In 2020, with La Scala and UniCredit, we established UniQLegal. Such innovative initiative brought together the considerable experience and advanced management technologies of the firms involved and the skills and processes of UniCredit Group’s legal department in order to handle more effectively and efficiently banking litigation, and especially serial litigation.
In addition, our IT services company, Legalsoftech, under the supervision of UniQLegal’s interdisciplinary teams, has also developed an automatic contract generator whereby, by answering a series of pre-determined questions, the system is able to automatically generate a complete contractual text. Once the base is created, we are able to customize it as required, minimizing risk, saving time and maximizing results.
We have also set up Next Legal, which deals with debt collection. Based in Bologna and with operational offices in Milan, it launched in June 2020 in partnership with CRIBIS Credit Management, a CRIF Group company specializing in the end-to-end management of problem and non-performing loans.
What is your governance model?
Our governance model is very similar to that of an S.p.A. and was unique in Italy in 2000, when it was proposed. Indeed, we have a shareholders’ meeting, a board of directors, an executive committee and a senior partner who presides over said management bodies. In addition, we were the first in Italy to introduce the so-called 'modified lockstep' system, i.e. a profit-sharing system based not only on the seniority of professionals, but also on their performance, without forgetting the necessary component of solidarity and income stability.
Budgets are approved by the shareholders’ meeting and every four months are reviewed according to financial projections. The cost budget is historically very reliable, with a deviation of around 1%-2% compared to the estimate, and subject to a very prudent financial management that relies almost exclusively on self-financing. Also our profit distribution system is extremely transparent. A points system that is also, but not exclusively, performance-based allows each member to exactly know in advance his/her income and there is never any discussion about this.
The firm is very active in the art sector. What initiatives and projects have you undertaken in this regard?
Our active involvement in the art world started about 20 years ago, as Negri-Clementi was a great collector of modern and contemporary art. After the creation of Nctm, thanks to Alberto Toffoletto joining the firm, we became increasingly involved. On his initiative, the project nctm e l’arte was created in 2011 and entrusted to Gabi Scardi, an important curator of contemporary art who, among other activities, organizes events during the year in our firm where the various works of the collection are displayed, enriched each year with new pieces by young, internationally recognized artists.
During such events, artists talk to the attending public, encouraging active participation. We have also established a scholarship, Artists-in-Residence, now in its 15th edition, dedicated to visual artists resident in Italy who wish to participate in artistic residency programs based outside Italy and recognized internationally by the art world.
What changes have you noticed in your profession over the years?
The profession has changed a lot. When I was younger, I used to work two or three days in a row without ever going to sleep because I was ambitious and wanted to achieve my professional goals. Nowadays, much more attention is rightly paid to the work-life balance. Furthermore, the world of law has lost some of its luster compared to the past.
When I started working, being a lawyer was one of the most important professions one could undertake, whereas today there are countless stimulating and attractive alternatives for young people, in Italy and abroad. So, it is difficult to envisage remaining in the same job indefinitely, but I am proud to say that I have never changed jobs, but at the same time I am lucky that the job evolved reflecting changes that have taken place in society over the past 20 years. For example, to return to the original question, I note with pleasure that nowadays all large Italian firms engage lawyers with high degrees of specialization in specific practice areas.
This may seem trivial, but it is not when you consider that, when we launched Nctm in 2000, many firms presented themselves on the market as 'know-it-all', as experts in any area of law. I have always considered this to be a superficial approach and not one that is synonymous with quality legal assistance, which is why, from the very beginning, our firm emphasized specialization as an essential quality in its professionals, introducing the compulsory requirement of a maximum of two specializations, possibly anticyclical, so as not to affect turnover. Such decision entailed the loss of some partners, who did not share this approach, but it was worth it to reaffirm our vision and be in a position to provide accurate, specific and high-quality assistance.
You have also established scholarships and degree awards. What is ADVANT Nctm’s approach to cultivating young talent?
We currently have over 250 legal professionals and around 70 employees. The firm’s goal is to continue to grow by investing in the best talents, but it is not easy to attract or retain them, for the reasons stated above. In the past, a good salary or the prospect of a long career used to be enough. Now this is no longer the case. As explained, now young people pay attention to other aspects outside the work environment, they want to gain experience and improve, not only professionally but also on a personal level.
For this reason, we have invested heavily in training through the ADVANT Nctm Academy, we have been cooperating with some of the most important Italian universities and have set up an award for the best law students and graduates. In addition, ADVANT runs an international secondment program, which allows young people to gain valuable experience abroad, in any of the network’s locations.
What are the firm’s ambitions for the future?
ADVANT was probably the last major project of the founding partners’ generation, of which I am a part. Over the years, the founders’ guiding principle has always been to create a firm that would survive us and go beyond the names, albeit prestigious, of the professionals who are part of it today. We are thrilled to have given birth, with ADVANT, to what we see as an institution with truly long-term prospects, destined to further expand and improve by always adapting to the new demands of the European market.
When I think back to where we were when we started, a small firm with a few practice areas, yet staffed with ambitious young lawyers in a world of veterans, I can only be proud of the path my partners and I have been on over the last 22 years. Now it is up to the new generation of young smart partners to take up the challenge of bringing ADVANT into the future.
