Massimo Caiazza is an Italian lawyer based in Milan who founded the law firm Caiazza & Partners in 1988. In 1996 he became the first member of the Swedish Bar Association without Swedish citizenship, and his practice combines Italian and Swedish business law.
Background
Massimo Caiazza was born in 1961 in Feltre, a town in the province of Belluno in the Veneto region of northeastern Italy. He grew up in Italy and later spent part of his youth in Friuli, the northeastern region whose principal cities include Udine and Trieste.
In his late teens he spent about a year in the United States as part of an international student exchange. He graduated from US Grant High School in Los Angeles, California, in 1979 and then returned to Italy to continue his studies in Udine.
Education
Caiazza completed his secondary education at the Liceo Classico J. Stellini in Udine, where his studies included classical literature, Latin, ancient Greek, philosophy, and science. The liceo classico is an Italian secondary school built around humanistic study, and it preceded his later legal training. His year in the United States ended with graduation from US Grant High School in 1979.
He then studied law at the University of Trieste. The institution traces its origins to the Advanced School of Commerce founded in Trieste in 1877 to serve the city's port trade, and it became a university by royal decree in 1924. Its Faculty of Law opened in 1938, the second faculty after economics and commerce.
His studies, which lasted from 1980 to 1985, concentrated on commercial law and private international law, and he received the Juris Doctor in 1985.
Career
Caiazza's professional training began in 1986, when he worked as a trainee at Advokatfirman Carler in Stockholm after qualifying as a lawyer in Italy. Carler was founded in 1960 and is a Stockholm business law firm. He commuted from Eskilstuna and used the train time to study Swedish legal texts, and his mentor there, the lawyer Barbara Segesvary, taught him the profession.
In 1986 and 1987 he practised law in Udine, Stockholm, and London. In 1987 he was a trainee at Middleton Potts Solicitors in London. In 1988 he founded his own law firm in Milan, Caiazza & Partners, which has an international orientation and particular experience in commercial relations between Italy and Scandinavia. He was licensed to practise in 1989 and has been a member of the Milan Bar since 1990. He has also been a member of the Supreme Court since 2002.
After Sweden joined the European Union in 1995, Caiazza applied to become a Swedish advokat, becoming the first foreign lawyer to do so. He completed an aptitude assessment and knowledge examinations on Swedish law at Stockholm University, and in 1996 he was admitted with the full title of advokat. The Swedish Bar Association, founded in 1887, gained official status under the Code of Judicial Procedure in 1948, and only its members may use the title advokat.
Caiazza later worked in Milan with De Berti Jacchia Franchini Forlani, where he became a partner in 2025. He has practised in Milan as an Italian avvocato while maintaining his Swedish practice rights.
Achievements
Became the first member of the Swedish Bar Association without Swedish citizenship, admitted in 1996 with the full title of advokat after completing an aptitude assessment and knowledge tests on Swedish law.
Membership
The Swedish Bar Association, Sveriges advokatsamfund, represents and supervises Sweden's advocates and works to maintain high ethical and professional standards in the legal profession. Caiazza was admitted in 1996 and joined its foreign section in 1997.
He has been a member of the Milan Bar since 1990, and he served on the Swedish National Bar Council in 2005 and 2006. Lawyers Cooperation, a network that welcomes law firms as members, welcomed him and his firm, and he rejoined its board after an earlier period of service.
Advokat with the full title; member of the foreign section from 1997
Swedish Bar Association
,
Sweden
1996 - present
Milan Bar
,
Italy
1990
Swedish National Bar Council
,
Sweden
2005 - 2006
Board member; rejoined the board after an earlier period of service
Lawyers Cooperation
Connections
Caiazza met his future wife, Susanne, in Udine in 1980, when he was nineteen and she was eighteen. The couple married in Eskilstuna, Sweden, in 1988, and have lived in Milan since then.
Wife:
Susanne
They met in Udine in 1980 and married in Eskilstuna, Sweden, in 1988.
References
Caiazza & Partners firm biography
Firm biography giving his birth year and place, his Italian legal education, and his Italian and Swedish bar admissions.
Tidningen Advokaten
Interview covering his Italian and Swedish legal careers, his trainee year at Carler, and his 1996 admission to the Swedish Bar Association.
