Your lawyer Sophie Herren

Her academic and professional background

A graduate of the Institut d'Etudes Politiques of Paris (Public Service Division) since 1990 and holding a PhD in Law, my academic curriculum is focused on the study of the Administration (Public Services) and its relations with both the citizens and the civil servants. I have a good expertise both in French Public Law and European Public Law as I obtained in 1991 a postgraduate degree in Internal Public Law and in 1992, one in European Community Law.

To finance the completion of my studies and in order to avoid being confined within a purely theoretical approach of the Law, I started in 1992 to work as a consultant for law firms in the Court as well as those pleading before the two French Supreme Court – le Conseil d’Etat and la Cour de Cassation-, while giving lectures or providing tutorials at the University and in a Business School. I have maintained since then, a teaching or professional training activity, which allows me to share my knowledge and to make the Law and its procedure more understandable to all.

I have sworn in May 2006 and since then, I am dividing my time between my main activities as a lawyer and my missions in supporting lawyers before the Supreme Courts, for private and institutional clients intervening in the public sphere. This “dual activity” allowed me to gain a thorough knowledge of all stages of the Public Services’ litigation procedure, from the beginning of the proceeding before an Administrative Court up to the Supreme Court/Court of Cassation, going through the appeal before the Administrative Courts of Appeal. This position represents the advantage of keeping me always at the heart of the evolving Case Law and the Law in order to analyze thoroughly the issues raised by the cases, to support the legal debate submitted to the judges or to the thinking of policymakers and to define the appropriate strategy for action. As there is no need for a mandatory application before Administrative Courts of First Instance and Appeal, I can conduct the investigations for litigation procedures, ordinary procedures or annulment appeal also called appeal for excessive use of power or full litigation or emergency procedures, before the emergency judges - emergency expertise, emergency provision, emergency pre-contractual, emergency suspension, emergency freedom – everywhere in France. Therefore, I intervene regularly in Ile-de-France, before the Administrative Court of Paris, Versailles, Cergy-Pontoise and Melun, and before the Administrative Courts of Appeal of Paris and Versailles. I also travel to provinces, especially before the Administrative Courts of Rouen, Caen and Nantes as well as the Administrative Courts of Appeal of Nantes, Bordeaux and Douai.

The major areas of expertise of her law practice

The activities of the law practice of Dr. Sophie Herren combines counselling and litigation, on behalf of private and institutional stakeholders, in key areas of public law: contracts and procurement / public services/ urban planning and environment / expropriation and pre-emption / liability lawsuits, as well as the adoption Law and in particular the approval procedure.