Friendly giant

Friendly giant

WHICH city in the world could absorb three thousand lawyers, make them feel at home and send them on their way saying it was the best conference they had ever attended? Barcelona. This Catalan capital is fast becoming the conference capital of the world. It has life, colour, warmth, incredible food, better wine, good-looking people, great venues, it is compact, honest and as raunchy as you can handle. It was host to the International Bar Association Section on Business Law meeting in September this year. Did they like it? Mucho...

If Barcelona is a friendly giant of a city, Christian Breitzke, partner with Hamburg-based Lebun & Puchta, and chairman of Committee A, which deals with maritime and transport law, is ambitious to turn the IBA into the friendly giant of maritime law. While taking the air with a Catalan giant, Breitzke said, "The IBA has the staff and the set-up to develop real services to lawyers. The CMI has lost its purpose, and lacks a secretariat. We are still very socially orientated, but we are becoming more business-minded. And when you need to know someone, the IBA is the place where you meet them."

Had you been in Barcelona you would have met about one hundred maritime lawyers. There were over one hundred and fifty signed up, but it seems many were tempted by the delights of Catalunya. The sessions were never more than two-thirds full, and the numbers had dwindled to forty-five by Friday morning. But then lawyers are discerning people, and who would voluntarily listen to a talk on the Australian COGSA after a good night out in Barcelona?

In fact, who would voluntarily listen to a talk on COGSA at any time? Alex Baykitch, of Blake Dawson Waldron, did his best, but he was up against it. Why don't lawyers learn to present themselves properly? There is no excuse for handwritten overheads, even in friendly company.

The company was too friendly for some. One German lawyer complained on the Monday of a Spanish lawyer handing out his business cards willy-nilly and soliciting business. Maybe not kosher behaviour, but surely better than listening to Luis Figaredo, of Figaredo Associates, droning on line by line through Spain's tax leasing scheme. That is stretching friendship to the limit.

Friendship was everywhere the night after that, when everyone and his wife, (this is not sexist, there were hardly any women delegates) went out to Can Cordoniu for dinner. What nicer way to make legal friends than a trip round one of Spain's premier wine cellars, followed by a good dinner? Followed, the next day, by sessions on guarantees and letters of undertaking. Chaired by Henri Li, of Shenzen's Henry & Co, it was, charitably, technical. Jose Maria Alcantara, Spain's biggest legal ambassador, had his chance to pitch then.

A lot less trying was the Thursday day out to the Montseny National Park. Barcelona-based maritime lawyer Ignacio de Ros was in his element all week, hosting this and that, and putting up a fine show of how to present evidence on the Friday morning. But Thursday was his big day, because that was when the delegates all took off to his house. Has he got a big house? Yes, complete with giants, and lots of fine wines, and a walk through the mountains, and embutits, which is the Catalan word for all sorts of sausages and hams, and paella, and more wine, and lots of folk dancing, and green mountainsides and every possible chance to chat informally to would-be friends and business partners.

Bo Broekhuisjen, senior partner of Amsterdam-based Schut & Grosheide, said he was learning about marketing. Nice way to start, and perhaps every city conference should have a country walk as part of it. It is an easier way to meet people than a conventional cocktail party, and less hard on the feet.

Maritime section

There are too few women and too few young lawyers in the IBA as a whole, and the problem is worse in the maritime section. So Mariana Pereira, of Pereira & Pereira, stood out when she made her presentation on the new legal framework of the Panama Canal. Young people and women hear this - the IBA is a useful place to meet people.

On Friday morning it was also a useful place to hear about he latest excesses of US law, where simple acts of negligence are now frequently criminalised. William J Honan, of Haight Gardner, had the unenviable task of following de Ros's highly successful and very visual presentation of computer graphical evidence. But he did it, and did it well, by talking sensibly about recent US cases and how they may affect an international shipping audience. But, like the first speaker, he used poor overheads. America is a rich country, but its lawyers often look like third world operators when they speak out. Lawyers go to the IBA to meet and impress others. Speaking helps them do that. Yet they invest so little effort in it that they actually damage themselves with their poor presentations. Honan's undoubted mastery of his subject and his wry humour saved him, but speakers at Amsterdam next year be warned. You need to do better.

Amsterdam? Yes, that fine and friendly Dutch city rivals Barcelona for a pleasant environment. From September 17 to 22 next year it will host the IBA section on business law. Book early, because it will be a bumper meeting. Salvage, the arrest convention, and global developments will cover the business topics. If you want to meet people, make sure you re there at the beginning of the week. The sessions may be boring, but that is when everyone is present. And that is what the IBA is about. If you can't make that, then put down a marker for Cancun in 2001.

The IBA is London-based, although it was started in 1947 in New York. Today it has over 18,000 individual members, of which 12,000 are in the Business Law section. There are 173 bar associations in the club, with over 2.5m members. So it is big. Committee A is smaller, with 1,100 members. It covers maritime business, but it is busy upgrading its rather dour newsletter and looking for ways to extend its influence and be useful to members. Not yet a giant, but feeding up.