Caffè Savoy with the lawyers Emanuela De Sabato and Raffaele Battaglini , co-founding partners of Futura Law Firm, among the first benefit law firms in Italy, to talk about innovation, sustainability and justice.

November is now gone and the fog has arrived. An aerosol of thick and cold steam envelops a Turin still sleepy and numb from the fatigue of the week. The appointment with Emanuela and Raffaele, co-founders of the legal boutique Futura Law Firm , is in their studio, on the first floor of a historic building a few steps from Piazza Solferino, the Savoy heart of the city. Both lawyers, Emanuela with a passion for sustainability, Raffaele with that of technology and digital, in 2021 decided to found Futura Law Firm .

“Futura, in Latin, means 'future things' - explains Raffaele, who is also CEO of Futura. We chose this name because innovation is at the heart of our project. Innovation does not only mean technology and digital, my areas of specialization, but also social, the area that follows Emanuela. We did not choose to use our surnames - as traditionally happens in legal situations - also to give lawyers who recognize themselves in this vision the opportunity to become part of our team ”. A team that, also thanks to the legal form of a partnership between lawyers (STA), is made up of professionals from different backgrounds and with extra-juridical skills. " Our team includes a digital entrepreneur, Amedeo Perna - our Chief Innovation Officer and co-founder and a philosophy expert, Marco Cassinera , the Chief Philosophy Officer, who helps us in strategic and sustainability activities", Emanuela tells me.

We sip hot coffee and visit the office. The antique parquet creaks, the liberty-style stained glass windows set in the wooden frames often transform the gray light into colorful and warm beams. After so many months of long-distance conversations it is nice to spend time together, Emanuela and Raffaele were among the first to discover Boniviri and support the project. “This is an office center, he explains to me. We made this choice, rather innovative in the world of law firms, to give people the opportunity to freely experience the space and time of work, the important thing is to achieve the goal. The social dimension of our project, which we care a lot about, also passes through here. And then this solution pushes us to go to our customers, meet them, establish a direct relationship with them ".

Futura Law Firm is among the few benefit law firms in Italy , the only one in Piedmont, and also for this reason it promotes this innovative legal form by assisting SMEs, start-ups and professional companies in the constitution and evolution into benefit companies. A legal form, introduced in Italy in 2015, which represents an innovation in sustainable business management by imposing few but concrete obligations. First of all, the integration of the objectives of common benefit in the bylaws of the company and the annual reporting of the results, not only business but also social, which the directors are required to present through the Impact Report. “We have also included kindness in our statute because we believe this principle is necessary, not only in our sector, but in general. If we were all kinder, our society would be better and fairer ”.

Let's talk about the future and Raffaele, who brought the New York movement Legal Hackers to Italy in 2016, guides me to discover a new world populated by words like blockchain, smart contracts, cryptocurrencies, artificial intelligence, NFT, metaverse. From the way he talks about it I understand that he is a very skilled navigator. Speaking of the future, what will Futura Law Firm be like in a few years? “We are convinced that innovation and sustainability are closely linked, sustainability is also achieved by exploiting new technologies, probably in ten years we will no longer make distinctions and will only talk about innovation. Our team, now also made up of Santiago Martin Caravaca, Luigi Cantisani and Selen Ekinci , will have grown, but the principles and our vision will still be the same ".

Time has flown and we have to say goodbye.

I keep thinking about future things as I leave behind the royal squares, the large avenues and the illuminated dome of the Mole Antonelliana. Emanuele and Raffaele are right: in this uncertain and agitated time, kindness, the freedom to choose, the right time, open teams and mixed skills are the safest way we have to navigate the present and build a better future.

Photo: @Manufatto