Good news in the legal community: Marie Dupont, a 44 year old lawyer, has been elected as Bâtonnière of the bar with almost 60% of the votes. This is a premiere for the Brussels Bar and a significant advance in the women’s history!
Who is Marie? Her background and her success story
Born into a large family, Marie doesn’t get the opportunity to study at university when she’s 18 years old. She decides to train as an esthetician and quickly enters the professional world. After a few years of employment, she starts studying law – a very promising diploma in her opinion – while keeping her part-time job.
In 2005, she graduates with high honors, stops working as an esthetician, and starts the bar. She does her internship with her (former) tax law professor: Maitre Jacques Autenne, partner at Janson-Baugniet. At the same time, she becomes Professor Patrick Wery’s assistant in the field of contract law.
Involved in the Carrefour des stagiaires’ activities, she is elected as delegate of the trainees in 2007. At the same time, she decides to focus her career on the law on the law of Obligations and Contracts by joining the team of Maitres Denis Philippe and Christophe Steyaert. At the end of her mandate, she’s appointed commissioner of the Young Bar Conference and holds the position of secretary of the Conference.
In January 2011, she launches her very own business and leaves the firm Philippe & Partners. to develop her clientele and her practice with great enthusiasm. She adds yet another string to her bow by assisting professors Paul Alain Foriers, François Glansdorff and Erik Van den Haute, with whom she conducts numerous scientific projects during 5 years. In 2013, curious to learn more and multiply her skills, she starts a training as a certified mediator which allows her to be regularly designated as such. In 2016, she joins maitres Spagnuolo, de Sart and Lenaerts to pursue her career development within a fully integrated firm, renamed INTAKT in 2018.
Elected to the College Board in 2016, she serves as Secretary and Chair of the MARC’s Committee. She then continues to be involved in various functions within the bar: CAPA teacher, disciplinary investigations, opinions for the judiciary, etc. It’s therefore quite natural that she’s now the first woman to be promoted to the position of Bâtonnière of the Brussels bar! Benevolent, dynamic, honest, determined and always ready to take up challenges, Marie pursues a brilliant path.
Her ambitious and inspiring program
- Facilitate the daily life of lawyers
Concrete measures: allowing trainees to pay CAPA courses in several instalments, lightening the administrative burden linked to the opening of BAJ files, efficiently settling disputes between lawyers, continuing the modernization of the Order’s communications, improving the promotion of alternative services, facilitating access to legal sources available in open data, etc. - Accompany them in a rich and fulfilling professional life
Many lawyers leave the Bar quickly, often because of a lack of professional or financial prospects, or a lack of clarity about the possibility of leading a truly balanced private and professional life. This loss of talent is detrimental to the profession as a whole and recruitment difficulties are real. It is therefore necessary, according to Marie, to improve the situation. - Improve trust and mutual respect with the judicial world
Lawyers and magistrates can work together to improve the functioning of the courts and registries, and thus of justice. - Enhance the image of the lawyer and the Brussels Bar
Brussels is the largest bar in Belgium and has a role to play in this respect, not only with the OBFG but also with international structures. A close collaboration with the European institutions is essential.
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