Chaouki Gaddada presents the firm's Labor Law - Social Security department

Chaouki Gaddada, Can you recall your background?

Yes of course. I was sworn in in October 2011 and I first practiced in firms dedicated mainly to supporting an employer clientele, which allowed me to discover the profession and strengthen my skills.

I joined Arst Avocats in May 2014, where I became a partner in January 2018. Today bringing together seven partners, we are a so-called full-service business law firm, organized around areas of activity, of which we can cite the poles contract law, commercial law, company law and social law.

Specifically, what can you tell us about the Labor Law – Social Security department of Arst Avocats?

Today, the team is made up of two collaborators in addition to myself. We can also rely on the punctual reinforcement of Morgan Jamet in certain files, in particular in terms of negotiating departures where he has considerable know-how.

We intervene both in advice and in litigation in favor of employers and employees.

We are very attached to this dual practice, which allows us to deal with a wide variety of situations, with the management of labor disputes at the heart of our activity. We benefit from very strong experience in this area, which we have acquired by dealing with a volume of very substantial and very rich cases in their diversity. Alongside this litigation activity, we are developing an important consulting activity, with missions that relate both to the handling of current affairs in labor law (negotiation of a collective agreement, establishment of a staff representative institution, disciplinary support, dismissal economic, etc.) than the management of more complex issues, such as participation in acquisition or restructuring audits.

To quote a strong competence, we can flatter ourselves with a favorable word of mouth as regards negotiation of departure of employees, which offers us very interesting files where we take a real pleasure to intervene.

We are also keen to develop new practices, such as that of internal audit in the event of alleged situations of harassment or fraud, and to enrich the expertise that we have acquired in the field of employment law for companies in difficulty: a very specific sector. social law, which provides for specific rules, but which we know quite well today.

What are the strengths of this department?

Without a doubt, the fact of intervening for both employers and employees has enabled us to acquire a perfect understanding of their respective dynamics.

We particularly benefit from this in the negotiation of departures, where our habit of both points of view favors our support for employees or employers who approach us. We believe that in this respect, this aspect distinguishes us positively from an activity that would be centered on an exclusive clientele.

We have also adapted our pricing practice to the situations in order to try to make these cases win-win cases, thus beneficial to both our clients and ourselves.

Generally speaking, our clients feel that we are associated with their issues and genuinely involved.

A Labor Law – Social Security department in a full-service law firm, does that still make sense in the face of the emergence of large social law shops?

In our opinion more than ever. Labor law and social security law are certainly technical disciplines that require real specialization, but their implementation cannot be considered without a link with the other disciplines that affect the life of the company: to support an employer client, it will very often be necessary to be able to understand the rules of company law, intellectual property law or the law of companies in difficulty.

These disciplines, which are also very technical, are not spontaneously easy to grasp for a labor lawyer. However, interaction with the lawyers in the firm's divisions who practice them will help us to understand the mechanisms at work in these matters and to identify their impact on labor law, which will allow us to consider more fully the different legal aspects involved in the situation with which our clients are confronted, thus offering them more relevant support.

By way of illustration, we can cite the new regulations on the processing of personal data, which have had significant implications for labor law. The numerous exchanges that we were able to have with the lawyers of the contract law division enabled us to take an interest in the general philosophy of this new regulation and to understand its meaning, which was then of great use to us in our practice, for example in the drafting of our model employment contracts.

The problems of our clients quite often escape the logic of partitioning by discipline, so we must not lock ourselves in if we do not want to expose them to avoidable risks: we see this, for example, in regarding the transfer of intellectual works created by employees which, when they are not organized or are organized in violation of the rules of intellectual property law, will deprive the employers concerned of the possibility of availing themselves of acquired rights under these works.

Conversely, today we see more and more business leaders facing the risk of reclassification of service contracts as employment contracts for having insufficiently taken into consideration the rules of social law.

It is therefore necessary, even in our imperative sense, to remain open to other matters and to maintain a certain legal culture, which the evolution in a multidisciplinary firm favors.

What future do you want for this Labor Law – Social Security department within Arst Avocats?

Ideally we are now seeking to attract other partners with complementary practices and who obviously share our state of mind. There are so many things to do in these matters, particularly in a changing and more than ever evolving society.