Grazia Ofelia Cesaro

Lawyer

I inherited the passion for the law from my father, Rocco Cesaro, who was also a poet and painter. He managed to reconcile his professional life with the dedication to the arts and was awarded many prizes and recognitions, such as the “Ambrogino d’Oro” from the City of Milan in 1981 and the title of “Accademico di Merito” from the Academy of Sciences of Rome. While I was at the beginning of my profession as lawyer, with the desire of becoming a “lawyer of the children”, my father, smiling at me, used to whisper “you are a dreamer, such a job does not exist”.

Grazia Ofelia Cesaro was born in Milan on 22 July 1963.

In 1988 she graduated in Law, cum laude, from the University of Milan. 

In 1992 she obtained the Master’s Degree of Specialization in Clinical Criminology from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Milan, for which she was awarded a scholarship funded by the Italian Ministry of University and Research.  

She was admitted to the Milan Bar Association on 9 January 1992. In 2004 she was licensed to practice before the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation. 

She has been Teaching Assistant for the course of Legal Psychology at the Faculty of Psychology of the University of Turin from 1996 to 2002. 

Her field of expertise involves national and international family law, children law, protection of vulnerable individuals, inheritance law and data protection of children. 

She has been receiving appointments to act as special guardian ad litem for children, from the Courts, for more than twenty-five years. She is also regularly appointed as a lawyer of children by public entities. 

Grazia Ofelia is also an author and editor of numerous scientific publications in the field of family law and juvenile law, both national and international. 

She is a lecturer in conferences, roundtables, training courses in the fields of family law and juvenile law, both in Italy and abroad. 

Since 2019 she has been President of the Unione Nazionale delle Camere Minorili (UNCM). Previously, she was President of the Camera Minorile di Milano from 2010 to 2019, and Vice-President of the Camera Minorile di Milano from 2004 to 2010. She was also Scientific Coordinator of the International Sector of the UNCM from 2012 to 2019, and of the Civil Sector from 2006 to 2012.  

Since 2018 she has been a legal consultant for the C.A.I. (the Inter-Country Adoption Commission, which was created by the Italian Presidency of the Council of Minister as the central authority for the 1993 Hague Convention on Inter-Country Adoption). 

Since 2017 she has been a member of the IAFL, “International Academy of Family Lawyers”. 

Since 2015 she has been a member of the CRINT, the Commission for International Relations of the Milan bar. 

She speaks English and French.