Our Social Responsibility of the Legal Profession program

The link to the academic world and civil and economic society has traditionally been a core value and aim of RocaJunyent.

We understand the exercise of the legal profession as the practice of a profession that enables the individual and collective development of our professionals, but also as an important way to actively collaborate in the development of our society. 

That willingness to have an active participation in society has led our firm to develop the Social Responsibility of Law Program “The Law and You”, with the aim of conveying our passion for Law as a configurator of relationships between individuals and of harmonious living in Society. 

“The Law and You” is aimed at secondary school students (3º and 4º from the Compulsory High School Education [Educación Secundaria Obligatoria, ESO]). The program consists of numerous sessions in schools explaining to students the civic value of laws and regulations and the importance of obeying them to live in an ordered and harmonious society.

The Social Responsibility of Law project expects students to ask questions such as: Why do laws exist? Why do they have to be obeyed? What are the benefits resulting from this obedience for the individual and for the entire community of citizens?

Teamwork, involving our lawyers and participating schools, is critical to project success. 

The ultimate aim of “The Law and You” is to encourage the attitude of respect and observance of the rules through the student’s prior reflection of the reason for such respect and observance. And how do we do it? From RocaJunyent we intend for young people to be able, on their own, to come to the conclusion of the common good that is supposed from the conservation of street furniture or individual contribution to sustaining public health, to the banning of gender violence or harassment via social media.

Once the sessions are completed, students reflect on the topics taught and complete a project of their choice. A jury of professionals from RocaJunyent makes a preliminary selection and an external jury of renowned professionals chooses the winning projects. 

Topics such as freedom of expression, gender violence, image rights and copyright, housing rights, rights of the LGTB+ community or the rights of minors, amongst others, have been chosen by students. The winning projects in the eleven completed editions address the following themes:

• Legal implications in the Sophie Scholl film (2014)
• Right to housing? (2015)
• War crisis in Syria, humanitarian crisis in Europe (2016)
• The use of image in educational centres (2017)
• Womens’ rights are human rights (2018)
• Squatting: crime or right? (2019)
• The presumption of innocence and social trials (2021)
• Law and covid-19: Covid passport (2022)
• Refugees: their right, our duty (2022)
• The Gutierrez case, summary proceedings (2023)
• The importance of nationality (2024)

Please also note the collaboration and involvement of all schools, which year after year, rely on the initiative for the benefit of society. A drive to connect two worlds, law and teaching, which join to bring young people from schools into a common space for reflection and work.

To complete the project, the two winning teams in the program “The Law and You” hold a debate on a topic chosen by the RocaJunyent professionals. During four prior sessions, lawyers from the firm coach pupils to prepare the presentation of the topic and the arguments for and against. On the day of the debate, the position that each team must defend is chosen at random.