Paris

Our in-depth understanding of the legal, regulatory, financial, and commercial dynamics that shape our clients’ industries — from financial services to life sciences, from energy and retail to sports and media — allows us to navigate the most complex domestic and cross-border deals and disputes. Connecting investors, private equity firms, and multinationals with opportunities in France, Europe, and around the globe, our Paris-based team provides unmatched transactional advice and litigation counsel across practices. 

Giving Back

As one of the world’s largest pro bono providers, Latham takes on matters in nearly every area of public interest law. In Paris, our pro bono causes include working with social entrepreneurs and not-for-profit organizations, including the French humanitarian organization Droits d’Urgence to run a biweekly clinic at a hospital in the north of the city. Together, we help indigent clients address the legal, cultural, social, and linguistic hurdles that arise when navigating complex government bureaucracies. Our lawyers advise on asylum and immigration, debt, labor and employment, as well as criminal law, and assist with applications to public benefit programs. We also advise many Ashoka Fellows to help them establish their projects within an appropriate legal framework.

Latham & Watkins’ Paris office is actively involved in pro bono matters has recently focused on providing legal assistance to national and international charities, nonprofits and nongovernmental organizations. In France, the firm works closely with the Pro Bono Institute and Handicap International, as well as with Ashoka France, assisting its fellows with new ventures, and with Business Angels des Cités, a private venture capital fund investing in small-and medium-sized companies located in economically depressed urban areas.

According to the Thomson Reuters Foundation’s third annual TrustLaw Index of Pro Bono, Latham ranks third in the provision of pro bono services in France. The 2016 index was “compiled with data collected from over 130 law firms—both large and small—and representing 64,500 lawyers in 75 countries, [and it] provides a snapshot of the resources mobilised by the industry in support of social causes, while also monitoring the growth of the sector globally.”

Latham's lawyers are also involved in various pro bono matters, including:

• Diversity projects with the Association Française des Managers de la Diversité (AFMD)
• Microfinance projects through Association pour le Droit à l’Initiative Economique (ADIE)
• Housing projects for disabled and physical training projects for the elderly and disabled through S.I.E.L. BLEU (Sport, Initiative et Loisirs)
• The establishment of drinkable water systems for rural populations in Cambodia through 1001 Fontaines Pour Demain
• Helping to staff a free legal clinic for the humanitarian organization Droits d’Urgence

The office's employment lawyers also provide assistance to Force Femmes, a nongovernmental organization that helps to provide access to employment for unemployed women age 45 and over, while Latham's litigators have advocated before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights for the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux and the Institut pour la Justice et la Démocratie à Haïti with respect to the electoral process for the presidential election in Haiti.

Survey of Pro Bono Practices and Opportunities

A multi-office team of Latham & Watkins lawyers and professional staff from across the firm’s offices globally conducted extensive research to prepare the 2016 edition of the “Survey of Pro Bono Practices and Opportunities” report. Conducted in conjunction with the Pro Bono Institute (PBI), the unique report is an essential resource for local practitioners, in-house teams and non-profits on pro bono practices around the world.

• Download the chapter about pro bono practices and opportunities in France