{"id":4975,"date":"2022-07-21T15:56:51","date_gmt":"2022-07-21T15:56:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eliott-markus.com\/?post_type=wilo&p=4975"},"modified":"2023-10-19T11:10:47","modified_gmt":"2023-10-19T11:10:47","slug":"thaima-samman-en-france-le-metier-davocat-en-affaires-publiques-connait-une-veritable-montee-en-puissance","status":"publish","type":"wilo","link":"https:\/\/www.eliott-markus.com\/en\/wilo\/thaima-samman-en-france-le-metier-davocat-en-affaires-publiques-connait-une-veritable-montee-en-puissance\/","title":{"rendered":"Thaima Samman: “In France, the profession of public affairs lawyer is really taking off”."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Entrepreneur and committed lawyer Thaima Samman<\/a>, founder of the Samman law firm<\/a> and President of the Association des avocats-conseils en affaires publiques, offers us an enlightened look at the legal environment of French, European and American public affairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can you tell us more about your work as a public affairs lawyer?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Our lawyers’ particular knowledge and expertise in public affairs, both as advisers and in implementing our clients’ strategies, is an undeniable added value. We are able to understand and demonstrate the issues at stake in the development of standards, and to make our position, interests, expertise and point of view heard by public authorities. We analyse the issues, identify the decision-makers and shed light on the debates in a constant search for the best approach and, where possible, a constructive dialogue with the public players. As specialist lawyers, we differ from traditional lobbyists and public affairs consultants in that we have our own legal dimension, methodology and ethical rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How is France positioned in Europe in terms of the conduct of public affairs?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

France is still lagging behind compared with Brussels or Washington or even London, Berlin or Frankfurt. The reasons for this lie in France’s institutional and political history and tradition of centralising political, administrative and economic powers around the central government. In our neighbouring countries, the conduct of public affairs is much more diversified, the voice of economic players and their recourse to experts in administrative and political issues have long been an integral part of decision-making procedures, which over the last few decades has led to an increase in skills and the development of extremely sophisticated professions in public-private dialogue, legal and regulatory advocacy and public affairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

France has begun to develop its own approach in these areas. It is no longer taboo to include economic stakeholders in the standard-setting process. This is a good thing for the relevance and effectiveness of the legal and regulatory framework, and I hope it will intensify. We have a lot going for us in this area. From secondary school onwards, we have learned to reason and think about complexity, and we have begun to develop very good training courses in this area, even though practice and experience are essential in this profession.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, how can we make the field of public affairs attractive to young lawyers?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

We undoubtedly need to do a better job of communicating the prospects, the interest (particularly intellectual) and the significance (including political) of this profession, which is still too little known in their curricula. At present, masters degrees specialising in law, particularly international or business law, are still the preferred route into the world of public affairs, but the ENS Droit\/Eco, Science Po, the College of Europe, etc. are all very high quality courses to prepare or supplement lawyers’ initial training for this profession. It is also up to us as professionals to invest in improving the attractiveness of the profession to young talent. And let’s not forget the lawyers who come from the public sector, who should be given easier access to the Bar. Many of them wrote the laws and regulations that lawyers interpret; we are part of the same family. Here again, the diversity of the backgrounds of the parties involved in drafting standards can only enhance their quality and effectiveness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2001, you set up the European Network for Women in Leadership (WIL). What motivated you then, and what are your objectives today?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The network has a number of aims: to promote women’s leadership, to build solidarity between women, to broaden our horizons so that we can acquire the 360\u00b0 vision of the world that all good leaders need to navigate\u2026 We also wanted to make women more visible. One of the reasons for the glass ceiling is that those who decide on careers don’t necessarily see them, because between a busy professional life and a family, talented women tend to neglect sharing their know-how! We created this club, for the moment exclusively for women (but which regularly welcomes male friends with pleasure), inspired by the Parisian and London clubs, which are very much male-dominated, in order to offer a framework for meetings, intelligence and opportunities for these women leaders in 24 European countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have also developed talent programmes. It also seemed important to us to pass on our experience to those who aspire to excellence or who could aspire to it but don’t dare. Sharing our experiences, giving them confidence, helping them to move forward more quickly and learning from them all seemed just as important and consistent with the network.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

About Thaima Samman<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

A founding partner of Samman, Thaima Samman began her career co-founding the SOS Racisme association. She began her career at August Debouzy, where she developed the Corporate Affairs practice, before heading the Communications, Public Affairs and Regulatory Affairs department at Philip Morris France. In 2003, Thaima joined the management of Microsoft France and took charge of the Legal\/Public Affairs department. She was then promoted to Associate General Counsel at Microsoft International, where she and her team covered the Europe-Middle East-Africa region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Co-founder of the European Network for Women in Leadership (WIL), Thaima is also a member of the Strategic Committee of Women Equity Partners, a private equity fund that finances growth companies run or co-managed by women, and was a member of the Supervisory Board of the video games company Focus Interactive. She is a Chevalier de l’Ordre National de la L\u00e9gion d’Honneur and a Chevalier de l’Ordre National du M\u00e9rite. Drawing on her experience, Thaima set up the Samman law firm to offer an innovative vision of the legal profession by providing combined expertise in the spheres of public affairs, institutional relations and law in Paris and Brussels.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"template":"","categories":[365],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4975","wilo","type-wilo","status-publish","hentry","category-expert-opinion"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThaima Samman: "In France, the profession of public affairs lawyer is really taking off". - eliott & markus<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.eliott-markus.com\/en\/wilo\/thaima-samman-en-france-le-metier-davocat-en-affaires-publiques-connait-une-veritable-montee-en-puissance\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Thaima Samman: "In France, the profession of public affairs lawyer is really taking off". - eliott & markus\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Entrepreneur and committed lawyer Thaima Samman, founder of the Samman law firm and President of the Association des avocats-conseils en affaires publiques, offers us an enlightened look at the legal environment of French, European and American public affairs. 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