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Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer partner Pascale Lagesse has been elected to the French Bar Council following the creation of the first ever women-only slate for the poll.

Lagesse was elected last month to a three-year term after Dominique de la Garanderie, one of France's most high-profile female lawyers, opted to create a women-only slate of candidates to better represent women lawyers at senior levels.

This has been hailed as a progressive move for the male-dominated Paris legal profession, which has generated few senior female partners in the commercial sector.

"Women lawyers do not have very good representation; about 60% of lawyers in France are women but only 15% of members in professional bodies are women," de la Garanderie told Legal Week.

Lagesse is head of Freshfields’ French labour law practice while de la Garanderie has held a number of senior positions in domestic firms and currently sits on the board of Renault. She is also the only ever female president of the Paris Bar Council.

Lagesse, along with two other candidates from the slate, join commercial lawyers including Taylor Wessing duo Paul-Albert Iweins and Alain de Foucauld on the powerful national bar’s main decisionmaking body, with Iweins this week being elected as chairman of the body.

The election comes as de la Garanderie, who did stand for the Bar but was not elected, quits Paris independent Ginestie Magellan Paley-Vincent to form her own 10-lawyer employment boutique.

The senior lawyer joined the firm in September 2004 after leaving local rival Veil Jourde, where she was then a name partner.

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