Marine Vitour, law degree (2018), lawyer

Could you introduce yourself and tell us a little about your background?

I'm 27 years old and work in Paris as an associate with JCD Avocats.

After my law degree at UCO, I joined the Master 1 Justice procès et procédures at the University of Rennes 1, with a view to preparing for the ENM entrance exam. I then joined the Master 2 Contract and Liability at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne to strengthen my skills in general private law.

After several internships in courts and law firms, I finally decided to register for the CRFPA exam at the end of my Master 2 in 2020. Admitted to law school, I joined the EFB in January 2021. At the same time, I obtained a second Master 2 in Litigation and Arbitration at the University of Paris 2 Panthéon-Assas.

I qualified as a lawyer in October 2022 and started my first partnership in January 2023.

Law is a vast field! Can you describe your responsibilities and the types of cases you work on?

I work in a law firm specializing in enforcement, a field I had the opportunity to discover during a Master 1 course. This field is a branch of private law and deals with the recovery of sums owed by a debtor. Condemnation of a debtor is only useful if the latter has sufficient assets to pay the sums due.

Enforcement procedures are an arsenal that enables you to take precautionary measures to "freeze" your debtor's assets, by undertaking seizures on his furniture, company shares or bank accounts, or by registering legal sureties on his real estate, such as a mortgage.

Once a conviction has been obtained, the second method of enforcement is to recover the sums owed by means of various seizure measures, the most emblematic of which is the seizure of real estate.

These measures generally require judicial authorizations and give rise to numerous disputes between debtor and creditor, which means that the lawyer's work involves a great deal of litigation.

What do you enjoy most about your career as a lawyer? How do you deal with professional challenges on a daily basis?

Being a lawyer is a profession in which you learn and discover new issues every day. It's also a profession that allows you to interact with a wide range of professionals (judicial commissioners, notaries, magistrates, court-appointed administrators, liquidators, etc.). It requires great curiosity, constant training and a high level of personal involvement.

In 2015, you started your law degree. Why did you choose to study at UCO?

UCO had the advantage of bringing together first-year students in very small classes, with very special support and supervision, which proves to be a real asset for law studies. The possibility of a four-month internship in the third year of the degree program was also a considerable advantage.

What memories do you have of your law degree at the Université Catholique de l'Ouest?

I have very fond memories of all the professionals and especially of our undergraduate advisors, with whom we were able to exchange ideas in a privileged and informal way outside the classroom.

What advice would you give to current UCO students aspiring to a career in law?

In addition to the classic advice about the importance of internships, I think it's important not to be afraid of taking the wrong path, to be curious and, above all, not to hesitate to change fields to discover new ones.