Macarena Olona joins her cousin Choclán's law firm after leave of absence

Macarena Olona leaves the State Attorney Corps for her cousin's law firm

A twelve-employee firm billing around five million euros a year does not, in theory, need a media-friendly hire. Choclán's firm just got one: Macarena Olona has requested a leave of absence from the State Attorney Corps (Spain's elite government legal service) to join the firm founded by her cousin, a former judge of the Audiencia National specializing in economic crimes. The news has peine an old question: when is a surname a leg up, and when is it just a coincidence?

Merit or nepotism? The profile dividing the profession

The recipient of this hire is no ordinary figure. Choclán served as a judge on the Incivil Chamber of the Audiencia Nacional and, according to analysis within legal circles, is one of Spain's top incivil lawyers, with recognized authority in economic crimes. His firm, founded in the early 2000s, before the 2008 crisis, is small: twelve employees and estimated annual revenue of five million. It is not the profile of a firm that needs a famous name to survive.

The question is what Olona brings. Her defenders point out that she is no newcomer: she passed a highly competitive civil service exam and became head of the State Attorney Corps in the Basque Country. "She is not an intern," they summarize. Her critics see the opposite pattern: the addition of a public figure whose judicial career was interrupted by years of TV punditry and campaigning. In between lies the most uncomfortable argument: nepotism is not always incompetence, but it is always hard to prove.

Public-sector leaves of absence: a poorly explained privilege

The second front is institutional. The State Attorney Corps is an elite body, with civil service exams offering very few places. Requesting a leave of absence to move into the private sector is legal and common; the problem is the perception. A leave of absence allows you to return to your public post if the private route does not work out, and that turns a state position into a safety net at the taxpayer's expense. In the case of someone who has made liberal rhetoric her brand, the contrast is hard to swallow.

The argument is made that the system should be tightened: you are either in the public sector or the private one, with no revolving doors. The usual rebuttal is that the public sector cannot compete with private salaries and that without leaves of absence it would lose its talent. The debate, as almost always, gets stuck on the specific case.

The salaries explaining the talent drain in law

The episode takes place in a legal market with its own distortions. A state attorney with ten years' experience in Madrid earns between 90,000 and 100,000 euros: a high salary by average standards, but not competitive against a good mid-level private-sector lawyer, who can earn twice as much. That gap explains why elite firms fish in the public sector without much effort.

There is also a current of pessimism about the market: Spain's big law firms (Garrigues, Uría, Cuatrecasas) are so expensive that they barely grow; the exception would be Pérez-Llorca, while the Big Four are capturing more and more business. And over the profession as a whole hangs artificial intelligence: with some 180,000 bar-registered lawyers in Spain, the forecast that technology will leave a substantial part of the profession jobless is no joke.

A gamble with prestige at stake

The most striking thing about the move is that it does not quite add up. A small, profitable firm does not need a public megaphone; a worn-out public figure does not need a 90,000-euro salary if she was already living comfortably on the 7,000 or 8,000 euros net a month of a judge. The most widespread reading is that there is something more: contacts, clients, an agenda in Central America, or plain ambition. Or all of it at once.

The ending remains open. If Olona lands big cases, the family tie will be an anecdote. If she fails, the surname will be the only explanation left. Spanish law, meanwhile, will keep watching the revolving door with the same old discomfort.