Lawyers and Engineers in Greece

Abstract

Although lawyers have traditionally operated as independent professionals, an increasing number are being forced into salaried employment (in what is known as ‘salaried cooperation’). A lawyer working as a ‘salaried associate’ is not classified as a worker and therefore does not qualify for even the most basic employment law protection. According to representatives of the Athens Bar Association, salaried associates work under unregulated conditions, receiving salaries amounting at best to €600 or 700 per month (similar to the salary of an unskilled worker) for 11 months of the year with no allowances, Christmas or Easter bonuses, for an unrestricted number of working hours per day (12 hours is typical), including non-working days (Saturday and Sunday) and without pay for overtime. Salaried associates are obliged to pay their entire social security contributions themselves, since their ‘cooperation’ relationship with their employer does not establish any obligation on the part of the latter to contribute to these payments. Not only is the prevailing trend in the legal labour market forcing the vast majority of newly qualified lawyers into such ‘cooperation’ arrangements, but an ever increasing number of more established lawyers are no longer able to exercise their profession independently in an era of transition of the profession from the traditional model of one lawyer in his/her own office to the law firm model.