Rita joined the Joint Law Societies Office in Brussels as the Justice Policy Advisor at the end of June 2015. She holds a master degree in Jurisprudence from the University of Florence with a specialisation in Private Comparative Law, and is a qualified teacher. She is an Italian national who has lived in the UK for 30 years.
Her portfolio is quite varied, covering all areas which are not related to commercial law. She monitors and advises the Law Societies on civil and criminal law, family law, consumer and contract law, access to justice, migration and asylum, civil and criminal procedure and matters of interest to private clients, like succession and property law.
During her career Rita acquired a varied experience in the European policy, education and voluntary sectors. After 9 years in London, where she honed her organisational and campaigning skills working in the Regional Office of a Political Party, she moved to Somerset where she became an active member of the community, volunteering as a school governor, town councillor, director of local charities and youth projects manager. She taught Italian in local 6th form colleges and she worked in a Member of the European Parliament’s office, where she specialised in foreign case work; from traffic fines to property deals gone wrong, from successions to specialist health care, from arrests to quarantined animals. She then became Senior Legal Advisor in the European Parliament, before joining the Law Societies Office.
Rita speaks Italian, English and French.
In her spare time, she enjoys cooking, reading science fiction and ancient history.
