The practice
María Canudas Pujol
Lawyer, member no. 2219 of the Balearic Islands Bar Association. Practising in Palma de Mallorca since 1990.
A small practice, by choice
I have practised as a lawyer in Palma de Mallorca since 1990, in my own practice and with a way of working that has not changed: the client speaks to the lawyer handling the case. There is no layer of intermediaries between the person asking and the person deciding the strategy, and no file passed from hand to hand.
It is a deliberate choice with a practical consequence: the number of matters I can take at once is limited. In exchange, when you call, the person who answers knows your case.
Administrative law
Most of my work is against public authorities: the town halls of Mallorca, the Balearic Government and public bodies of every kind. Penalties and enforcement proceedings, state liability and public employment, both in the administrative route and in judicial review before the courts of Palma and the High Court of the Balearic Islands.
It is a field where accumulated experience counts in a particular way: much of the outcome turns on knowing how each body actually handles its files, where those files usually fail, and which arguments have worked before which court.
In March 2019 the Spanish Supreme Court upheld a cassation appeal I brought for four public employees of the Balearic Government who had been excluded from horizontal career progression as interim staff, holding that career progression forms part of "working conditions" under EU Directive 1999/70/EC (STS 293/2019, of 6 March, appeal 2595/2017). I mention it because reaching cassation requires the Court itself to find a point of general legal interest — not because it guarantees anything: every case turns on its own circumstances.
Criminal defence
I also take criminal work, both defending the person under investigation or charged and acting as private prosecutor for those who suffered the offence, with particular attention to cases where criminal and administrative law overlap.
Civil law
Inheritance and succession, tenancies, contracts and claims, property and rights in rem. There is a peculiarity here that is best not discovered late: the Balearic Islands have a civil law of their own, and what decides whether it applies is the deceased's civil status of origin, not where the assets lie or where they happened to live at the end. Which is why two estates that look identical on paper are divided quite differently.
It is a field settled mainly by what was signed at the time and by what can be proved now, rather than by the argument built afterwards. That is why I ask to see the documents before giving a view: what is written is what governs.
Language
The practice works in Spanish. This site is translated into English so that you can read it and judge whether to call, but the consultation itself, the correspondence and the proceedings are in Spanish. If you are not comfortable in Spanish, bring someone who can interpret for you to the appointment.
One thing is worth saying even so, because it is what most often goes wrong for foreign residents and property owners in Mallorca: the problem is rarely the substance of the case. It is a Spanish-language notification that looked like routine post and was in fact the start of a deadline. If you are holding one, do not wait until you have understood it — the clock is already running.
Judgement
I would rather lose the instruction than bill for an appeal that is bound to fail.
A lawyer who says yes to everything is easy to hire and expensive to keep. If, on reading your file, my view is that the case cannot go anywhere, I will tell you at the first consultation, with reasons.
And where it can, what you get is a written engagement setting out the scope of the work and the fees, at a fixed price wherever the nature of the case allows one.