Bocconi Law Degree, Twenty Years Later

IT WAS 1999 WHEN THE FIRST BOCCONI LAW DEGREE WAS LAUNCHED. NOW, TWO DECADES SINCE INCEPTION, THE VERY FIRST GRADUATES SHARE SOME OF THEIR MEMORIES


The Bocconi degree program in Law is twenty years old. It’s an important turning point that the Bocconi School of Law is celebrating with a two-day event on October 18-19. Since 1999, when the first four-year degree in Law (CLG) was activated, up until the current five-year program in Law (CLMG), 3,400 Bocconi students have worn gowns and caps in graduation ceremonies, the latest last July.

"Today the Bocconi Law Degree connects the national legal culture, which has its roots in the Continental tradition of codification, with the needs of contemporary society", explains Mariateresa Maggiolino, director of the program. "Ours is indeed a global and digital society that demands the jurist know how to combine different forms of knowledge and language".

The Bocconi graduates in law represent thousands of stories, thousands of faces, thousands of exams and personal anecdotes waiting to be brought to the surface. This is what happened on the Bocconi stage during the bi-decennial celebrations, as the memories of students of the very first cohort of the course was shared live. Indelible memories, such as the one linked to "the 'black spots' that Giovanni Iudica placed on the shoulders of those making noise during his lectures on civil law," Benedetta Della Rovere remembers. Today she is law, politics, and business and economics reporter for the LaPresse news agency: "Anyone caught talking or disturbing was 'branded'. A sort of lasting stigma that when the oral exam came was used against the student in a half-threatening half-ironic manner."

Another anecdote involved Professor of Mathematics Lorenzo Peccati, and the protagonist is alumna Loredana Carletti, today private markets head of structuring at Amundi AM in Paris: “I was invited to Rome twice for an initiative promoted by the Accademia dei Lincei on the concept of legal calculability and each time I met Professor Peccati there. We joked that when in Italy there is an initiative that brings economics and mathematics closer to law, a microclimate is created that enables one to find old students of the course ".

This aspect - the opportunity to delve into both law and economics in the course - is often emphasized by the alumni talking about the Bocconi law program: “I have acquired skills in the field of law and business which, according to my experience, remain unique in the Italian academic landscape", says Roberta Lacagnina, head of group regulatory compliance at Generali: "Speaking of compliance, being able to combine knowledge of the rules with awareness of a company's operating mechanisms makes all the difference: the support offered to attorney colleagues and the company is certainly more complete, adequate and effective. The same consideration also applies to personal data protection, which I have to deal with because of my function.”

Edmondo Mostacci also reiterates that, from his seat in the first cohort of the course, he passed to the other side of the desk and today he is Professor of Constitutional Law at Bocconi: "One of the most important aspects of the degree course is the mix of  legal and economic knowledge the university provided me with. The latter are a necessary complement to the preparation of a contemporary jurist. What matters most is the habit of interdisciplinary study, the constant reminder not to withdraw into 'regional ontologies' (according to the beautiful definition of Edmund Husserl) which fragment knowledge and make it in the long run useless for the cultural and social progress of the community".

But in the memory of the course alumni there is not only the economic slant in the study of law. Another key aspect is recalled by Luigi Gallinoni, head of legal affairs at at Ferrari: “During the international week of my third year, Vittorio Colao advised us students not to miss the opportunity of an exchange program which is the best memory of his course at the University. Already at the end of the third year I left for my exchange at UCLA. It turned out to be a great suggestion ". Federico Vasoli, a lawyer in Milan, managing partner of MTV Global, echoes this: “The Bocconi Degree in Law left me with knowledge, human relationships and an internship in Beijing that changed my life. If I now live in Malta and correspond from Hanoi, the trigger cause was just that student experience in China."

The winning card of the Bocconi program in Law, according to  alumni, is its practical usefulness and the richness of the academic experience it provides. Proof of this comes from placement data: the latest Bocconi employment survey shows that 95% of Bocconi law graduates are employed one year after graduation. A year after graduation, 71.6% of those employed carry out apprenticeship in a legal firm, five years after graduation, 81.3% of those taking the state exam have obtained the license to practice law.

"Our graduates are prepared to understand and govern changes and conflicts", says Maggiolino. "Even those imposed by the development of markets and technology, strengthened by the knowledge of principles and rules that inform our political community," she concludes.
 

by Andrea Celauro
Translated by Alex Foti