“The Lawyer for Crises and Disasters”
Elected Second Secretary of the Paris Bar Training Conference in 1968, Daniel Soulez Larivière began his career as a court-appointed lawyer in criminal espionage cases. In particular, he was appointed to defend Eugène Rousseau, a civil servant wrongly accused of treason, whom he succeeded in securing the release of; and subsequently that of Léopold Trepper, former head of the ‘Orchestre Rouge’, who had been implicated by the Director of the DST.
His expertise and commitment to defending his clients quickly earned him a reputation that led the French State to entrust him, in 1985, with the defence of the Turenge couple – who were posing as a married couple – in the Rainbow Warrior affair. From the late 1970s onwards, he was also involved in several political and financial cases (the Arc affair, the Garantie Foncière case), which heralded the emergence of corporate criminal law in France.
It was in these cases, with their high political and media stakes, that Daniel gradually established himself as a leading lawyer in the field of crisis and disaster management. For more than 20 years, Daniel acted as counsel for Total and the French Civil Aviation Authority (DGAC) and its staff in several major cases (the Mont Saint Odile crash in 1989, the Erika oil spill in 1999, the Concorde crash in 2000, and the AZF factory explosion in 2001).
Alongside his professional practice, Daniel has devoted his life to reflecting on all aspects of the legal system. He has written or co-authored nearly twenty books and hundreds of articles on the justice system, with a view to examining how it operates and working to improve it. Among other works, he is the author of *L’Avocature*, a reference work on the legal profession.
Daniel Soulez Larivière was a former member of the Bar Council and an Officer of the Legion of Honour. He served as Chair of the “Ethics Committee of the Paris Bar” from 2015 until his death in September 2022.
