His professional history began in 1955 when he joined the firm of Prof. Cesare Grassetti, one of the greatest, if not the greatest, civil law practitioners of the twentieth century, holder of the Chair of Civil Law at the State University of Milan, later Dean of the same Faculty, and formerly Professor of Employment Law at the Universities of Cagliari and Catania. He was admitted to the firm after passing the Procuratore Legale examinations in Milan, coming first among 3,000 candidates, and after successfully completing the test set for him, which consisted of drafting a statement of defence for an appeal on a matter of unfair competition.
Prof. Grassetti asked him whether he intended to pursue an academic career or the legal profession. He chose the legal profession.
He thus began to deal, at first under Prof. Grassetti's guidance – and subsequently with increasing independence – with all the most important disputes then being litigated in Italy between the largest national and foreign companies and the great Families of the time: from civil law to succession and matrimonial law, from company law to commercial, patent and employment law.
In 1973, the labour procedure rules came into force, requiring, as regards employment cases, oral proceedings and therefore constant presence in the courtroom, which had become demanding also because of the heated climate of those years.
Against the advice of Prof. Grassetti, who believed it would be more beneficial for his professional future to set aside employment law and continue to deal with civil law matters in the broadest sense – patents, unfair competition, challenges to resolutions of listed companies“ shareholders” meetings, etc. – since none of the firm's associates came forward to handle employment cases during those “years of lead”, he began to deal with them personally, attending the courtrooms daily and achieving successes that were reported by the press and media of the time.
In Milan, he remained the only lawyer assisting companies and miraculously escaped two attacks by the Red Brigades.
Although mainly dealing with employment law matters, he continued to take an interest in important civil law issues, in addition to arbitration proceedings, both as counsel and as chairman.
In 1986, together with his talented associates of the time – who are still Partners of the Firm today – he founded the firm Trifirò & Partners Avvocati, which continued the work he had begun in previous years, handling tens of thousands of cases and always aiming for the conciliation of disputes even before litigation, thereby making a decisive contribution to the creation of living employment law.
This contribution took shape through the establishment of important legal principles on legitimate trade union action, the right to strike, individual and collective dismissals, wage guarantee funds, workplace bullying, self-employment and employment relationships, conciliation procedures and trade union law.
LANGUAGES
English, French
