the – Interview by Boris Stoykov – Law – Law News
Olivier Cousi has simply taken up his duties as President of Paris. His arrival coincides with a pension reform that places the occupation beneath strain. Past this battle, different challenges are rising with, particularly, the transfer to the brand new Maison des Avocats. For him, in right this moment's more and more digital atmosphere, the long run should lie between "custom and modernity".
Parisian posters: The legal professionals marvel and fear after the announcement of the pension reform undertaking; undertaking which isn’t totally clear right this moment. Are you able to inform us about it?
Olivier Cousi: The occupation has arrange an autonomous scheme which has nothing to do with the overall scheme for workers arrange after the Second World Battle. This autonomous scheme was created by legal professionals, within the type of an impartial pension fund, the CNBF. It was put in place a lot later, as a result of legal professionals solely had retirement as an impartial occupation. This fund is nicely managed. It meets the wants of legal professionals. It’s united because it permits every lawyer to have a minimal pension revenue of two,450 euros, whatever the degree of contribution. As well as, this autonomous fund is in solidarity with the overall scheme because it contributes annually as much as 100 million to the funding of the overall scheme. Our occupation is due to this fact a bit dumbfounded. One wonders why legal professionals are involved by a reform geared toward making certain the financial sustainability of the overall scheme for workers. We don't have a particular food plan. We don’t price the nationwide neighborhood a euro and, on our funding, we’re not assured by the State, which often is the case for the particular schemes on which the Authorities needs to behave.
PY : Earlier this week, you had a gathering with the Secretary of State for Pensions and the Keeper of the Seals. What did you keep in mind?
O. C.: To start with, we observed an actual concern amongst our interlocutors. Nonetheless, regarding our regime, we had been assured that there was no opening insofar as this common regime may also apply to the self-employed. The invoice beneath dialogue should evolve, however the Authorities has clearly opted for the mixing of impartial professions, together with legal professionals, into the common system. On this speculation we requested, on the one hand, to protect the autonomy of our fund and, however, to have assurances on the autonomy of administration and on the autonomy of governance, with the potential for '' adapt sure measures. We additionally wished the assure that this reform wouldn’t price legal professionals a euro, that’s to say that measures can be applied to compensate, scale back, or at the very least keep in mind the rise in contributions. Because it exists within the Delevoye report right this moment, it’s insufferable economically for legal professionals. On compensatory measures, we await proposals. We have now indicated that we’re prepared to debate it and to check these measures and their affect, however we now have not but obtained a solution.
Independently of the compensation techniques on the rise in contributions and the lower in pensions, our third request considerations compensation for the confiscation of the autonomy of this scheme or the confiscation of its administration inside the framework of the draft regulation since it’s going to impose numerous measures on pensions, minimal pensions, the pension contribution system, the compensation system and the pension calculation system which can essentially have an effect on the best way it really works right this moment our food plan right this moment.
PY : If autonomy is granted to you, the opposite measures grow to be ineffective…
O. VS. : Autonomy will essentially be framed, in any case on the fundamental regime. Which means if the fund retains its autonomy by way of belongings, governance and operation, it is going to be obliged to use the principles mounted on the fundamental regime by the common regime.
PY : Whereas right this moment, you’ve gotten a derogatory functioning?
O. C.: At this time, we function independently. We resolve completely independently the contribution ranges and the pension ranges, with a reasonably helpful inhabitants. We have now a retiree for 4 employees. From this perspective we’re advised that this will not be the case in 20 years or in 30 years. In reality, nobody is aware of. For our half, we be aware that the occupation stays dynamic, with everlasting progress within the workforce. The projections which have been made by the CNBF don’t recommend any inflection, at the very least over the following 20 years. Past that, no one is ready to make actual forecasts.
PY : So right this moment, the CNB, the Convention of Bâtonniers and the Paris bar are sustaining the slogan of strike.
O. C.: The strike slogan is maintained till we now have obtained the mail which the Authorities has undertaken to produce on the three factors which have been set out.
PY : On January 6, the Keeper of the Seals despatched a letter to the occupation, co-signed with the Secretary of State. Have you ever observed any progress?
O. C.: No, the letter takes up the state of discussions and proposals that had already been expressed in July. There have been no new proposals.
PY : Les Echos lately revealed an article reporting an allegedly secret Ernst & Younger research. Have you learnt this research?
O. C.: The CNB has, which is regular, requested this cupboard for research on the affect on pensions and pensions based mostly on case analyzes, since Minister Delevoye had offered a sure variety of hypotheses. In essence, a lawyer who would enter the occupation at a sure age would retire at such a age, receiving a pension of such quantity … So based mostly on the evaluation of those circumstances, the CNB had requested Ernst & Younger to make its personal calculations, to permit us to grasp and analyze the proposals. It seems that this work is in progress, that it’s not completed and that Les Echos had entry to preparatory research with hypotheses which, after all, can go somehow. The doc which was communicated to Les Echos is due to this fact not conclusive. It’s regular that it’s not essentially last. As well as, the calculation assumptions which had been offered by the Authorities, on which we had commented, takes the case of a lawyer who would enter the occupation at 24 years previous and who would earn an annual revenue of 40,000 euros. He would obtain, within the common system, a pension equal to or greater than that which is obtainable right this moment by the CNBF. However this speculation doesn’t exist, since no lawyer enters the occupation at 24 years of age. The typical age is reasonably 29 years, with 5 years much less contributions. As well as, no lawyer earns 40,000 euros the primary yr of train, in any case it’s not the typical. The figures due to this fact differ extensively with reasonable assumptions.
All of the curiosity is to have the ability to talk about it with these assumptions reflecting the truth of the occupation. At this time, 40% of the Paris bar receives remuneration equal to or lower than 40,000 euros. We might due to this fact be immediately impacted by the doubling of contributions.
PY : Are different research underway?
O. C.: It’s actually the identical research that continues to have parts of study and comparability consistent with actuality and permitting dialogue with the federal government on the premise of its proposals.
PY : Different recordsdata await you. You’re beginning your two-year time period with loads to stay as you identified throughout your speech on the formal begin of the EFB. You careworn the significance for firms to implement the proposals of the Gauvin report. Do you assume the company lawyer is an possibility that may materialize quickly?
O. C.: There’s certainly the pretty pressing want to guard French firms in opposition to acts of unfair competitors on the a part of authorities, notably American, which aren’t judicial authorities, however customs and tax authorities. To guard firms, they have to now be capable of profit, inside their authorized division, from legal professionals registered with a bar. That is the case in all European nations, besides in France. As well as, and as already talked about in my speech at the beginning of the brand new faculty yr, the neighborhood of legal professionals in France is made up of legal professionals but in addition company legal professionals. This neighborhood is getting nearer and nearer, an increasing number of related. All have handed via the bar's coaching faculty, have the capa, know one another and work collectively. This neighborhood exists and works fairly nicely. The Cercle Montesquieu, the French affiliation of company legal professionals, even takes half in coaching on the EFB. Nonetheless, there’s nonetheless an issue: this coaching of company legal professionals is funded by the authorized occupation whereas they may tomorrow be authorized administrators.
And there once more, my want is that there’s convergence, that there’s work in widespread, in order that this skilled neighborhood can work beneath a single banner which might be linked to the presence or the qualification of lawyer, which is probably the most protecting.
PY : What different initiatives are you going to have to hold out on the Paris bar?
O. C.: On this mandate, which may be very quick, as you identified, there are initiatives that we supply out and others that we launch, as a result of they won’t essentially be carried out in full within the two years of our mandate. We have now defined these completely different strains of labor in our speeches about passing the stick. First, there’s the set up on the new Maison des Avocats. The transfer is deliberate for March with the implementation of those new premises. There’s the digital plan that we proposed, which consists in upgrading the colleagues who want it, by providing them a digital package which shall be accessible through the first quarter, accessible with circumstances each monetary and on the identical time methods that enable every lawyer of the Paris bar who needs to be outfitted, seen and accessible on-line, protected with a minimal of cyber safety whereas gaining access to documentation. This plan provides them the means to work in a digital atmosphere that’s right this moment that of their prospects. We even have the undertaking to pursue actions to protect or defend equality inside the occupation.
Nathalie Roret will arrange an equality observatory. We may also work on the affect of the Paris bar, on the Paris sq. as a robust and acknowledged place of regulation, in order that each international legal professionals come to settle in Paris and that legal professionals from the Paris bar can go to work overseas. I clearly don’t forget the safety of collaborators, of liberal collaboration, by discovering new methods to stability actions, to make collaborators revenue from an incentive; a sort of participation within the operating of the follow, and why not for the profit or the contribution of recordsdata… We should additionally take into consideration new modes of train.
We have now quite a lot of initiatives. The widespread denominator between them: the supply of companies for legal professionals. The orientation isn’t new, however we wish to strengthen it: the Order should meet the wants of legal professionals.
PY : Sure, exactly with the brand new Lawyer Home, the previous Home will stay. What’s its particularity and what are the brand new issues it’s going to deliver to the Order of Paris.
O. C.: The brand new Home of legal professionals will, to start with, deliver them proximity to the courtroom which was neither designed nor constructed for legal professionals. The place of the latter is, furthermore, very restricted. Colleagues rightly complain about it. The speedy reply is to have a spot to work, particularly in coworking, on the forecourt in entrance of the courtroom. Additionally it is a spot to obtain prospects, to organize hearings, whereas being a spot of conviviality. The primary goal is to permit legal professionals to have higher working circumstances when they’re in courtroom. The second can be, on the degree of inside group, to permit sure companies of the Order which can transfer from Place Dauphine, to have higher working circumstances, by way of ergonomics, modernity and tools, in a really stunning constructing which has simply been delivered and which shall be inaugurated in April, relying on the set up of the tools.
PY : Your motion will due to this fact mix “Custom and modernity” in line with your components…
O. C.: I believe it is vital that we now have values which can be mirrored precisely on this “custom and modernity” components. The occupation carries values of ethics, dignity, benevolence, high quality, coaching, credibility and deontology. We want them much more in right this moment's more and more trendy and digital atmosphere.
