A partner who is recruiting wants to know which matters you have worked on. You want to show them. Between the two stands professional secrecy, which does not stop at the door of the firm and applies to your CV, your LinkedIn profile and what you say in an interview. Many candidates solve the problem by staying vague, and their CV becomes unreadable; others name clients “because everyone knows them” and take a real disciplinary risk.
This article explains exactly what secrecy covers, what can be mentioned without difficulty and, above all, how to describe an anonymised matter precisely enough for a partner to understand your level. It ends with the specific case of in-house lawyers, who follow different rules.
What a lawyer’s professional secrecy covers
The principle is laid down in article 66-5 of law no. 71-1130 of 31 December 1971 and restated in article 2 of the national internal rules of the legal profession (RIN) 🔗, adopted by the Conseil national des barreaux. The RIN puts it bluntly: a lawyer’s professional secrecy is a matter of public policy, “general, absolute and unlimited in time”.
Three points matter for your CV.
- Client names are covered. Article 2.2 of the RIN expressly lists “the names of clients and the lawyer’s diary” among the protected items. It is therefore not only the content of a matter that is secret, but the very fact that a client consulted you.
- Secrecy does not disappear when you leave the firm. It is unlimited in time: a matter handled six years ago, in a firm you have since left, is still covered.
- It applies to advisory and contentious work alike. Secrecy covers, “in all matters, in advisory work or in litigation”, opinions, correspondence, meeting notes and all information received in the course of practice.
The RIN provides one exception worth knowing: in public or private tender procedures, a lawyer may give the names of clients as references, with their express and prior consent. This mechanism shows the logic of the rule clearly: without the client’s consent, no name.
What can be mentioned: public transactions, published decisions
Not everything is forbidden. Two categories of information are, in practice, easier to mention, provided you remain careful.
Transactions made public by the clients themselves
An acquisition announced by press release, an IPO, a fundraising round whose advisers were listed in the press: when the client has itself made your firm’s involvement public, mentioning the transaction raises fewer difficulties. Two caveats, however.
- Your role is not public. The press release names the firm and sometimes the partner, rarely the associate. Writing that you “negotiated the shareholders’ agreement” on a named deal says more than the client has published.
- The firm has its own policy. Many firms ask their associates not to name anyone, even publicly known clients, on a CV or profile. Check before sending your application, especially if you are still in post.
Published court decisions
A decision delivered in public, published in a law report or in a case-law database, is available to everyone. In principle you can cite a decision you contributed to, by court, date and legal significance. The rule of caution is the same: your client’s identity and the strategy followed are not in the decision, and they must not appear on your CV. A line such as “court of appeal ruling on the interpretation of an earn-out clause, drafting of the written submissions” is enough to show the work without exposing anyone.
Describing an anonymised matter: nature, stakes, role
Most of your matters will be neither public nor published. The method that works relies on three elements, always in the same order.
- The nature of the matter: type of transaction or dispute, sector described generically, forum or framework (arbitration, mediation, negotiation).
- The stakes: an order of magnitude (amount, headcount, number of sites, duration), expressed as a range when an exact figure would make the case identifiable.
- Your role: what you drafted, negotiated or argued, alone or in support, and with what degree of autonomy.
Three before and after examples
Commercial litigation.
- Before: “Involvement in litigation for clients in the retail sector.”
- After: “Litigation over the abrupt termination of an established commercial relationship for a regional food distributor, alleged loss of several million euros: drafting of the appeal submissions and pleading notes.”
Corporate.
- Before: “Mergers and acquisitions.”
- After: “Acquisition of an industrial mid-sized company by a mid-cap LBO fund: drafting of the purchase agreement and schedules, coordination of the data room, negotiation of the warranty and indemnity package with the sellers’ advisers.”
Family law.
- Before: “Divorces and estates for private clients.”
- After: “Liquidation of matrimonial property regimes covering real estate and business assets, working with notaries: preparation of draft liquidation statements and written observations.”
The “after” versions name no one. Yet they tell a partner everything they are looking for: technical depth, order of magnitude and your level of autonomy. The pre-filled CV of a commercial litigation lawyer applies this method bullet by bullet, and the guide commercial litigation lawyer CV explains how to organise courts and pleadings.
The traps of anonymisation
Removing the name is not always enough. A matter can be recognised by its details.
- An overly precise sector: “the French leader in hybrid seeds” is as good as a name. Prefer “a listed agri-food group”.
- The place-date-amount combination: a construction dispute “in Nantes in 2024”, with its exact amount, is identifiable by the whole local bar. A range and a region are enough.
- The high-profile case: if a matter made the headlines, readers will make the connection even if it is anonymised. It is better to describe it by category (“product liability litigation with heavy media exposure”) or to leave it out.
Deal list and list of matters as an appendix
In business law firms, especially in corporate, private equity and finance, partners often ask for a deal list: the list of transactions you have worked on, with your role. It is a separate document, which does not replace the CV and follows the same rules.
A few principles for building it:
- Do not send it unsolicited. Keep it for the interview or for an explicit request, once discussions are under way.
- Separate public from non-public. One column for transactions announced by the clients, one column for transactions described anonymously. The former may carry a name if your firm accepts it; the latter never.
- Use the same format for every line: nature, sector, order of magnitude, side represented, your role. The partner should be able to compare your transactions at a glance.
- Keep the number sensible. Ten well-described transactions are worth more than a forty-line list where your role comes down to “review of schedules”.
In litigation, the equivalent is a list of matters by court and type of pleading. It is mainly useful for senior profiles, who cannot fit everything on the CV. For an associate early in their career, a well-built single page is enough; the article moving to another firm as a lawyer explains how to adapt this content from one application to the next.
The pre-filled CV of a private equity lawyer shows another option: grouping transactions by type of work (acquisition, shareholders’ agreement, management package) rather than listing them one by one.
In-house lawyers and confidentiality
An in-house lawyer (juriste d’entreprise) is not an avocat: they are not bound by a lawyer’s professional secrecy, and under current French law their opinions do not enjoy the same protection. The question of confidentiality for in-house legal advice regularly comes back in parliamentary debate; check the state of the law when you write your CV.
That does not mean an in-house lawyer can write anything on their CV. Other rules apply:
- the duty of loyalty attached to the employment contract, often with an express confidentiality clause;
- trade secrets, protected by the commercial code since the law of 30 July 2018;
- market rules if your employer is listed: a transaction in preparation is inside information.
In practice, the method is the same as for a lawyer in private practice: describe the project by its nature, its stakes and your role, without naming any partner, target or counterparty. An in-house lawyer who handled a dispute with a supplier will write “contractual dispute with a strategic supplier, several million euros at stake, management of external counsel” rather than naming the opposing company. Your employer’s name, on the other hand, normally appears on the CV: it is the names of your clients and counterparties that must stay out of the document.
The pre-filled in-house lawyer CV shows how to present a contract portfolio and managed disputes without revealing the company’s business partners.
Putting the method on the page
Once your matters are rewritten, they still have to fit on one readable page: a one-line context under each firm, three to five bullets built on the nature, stakes, role pattern, and ranges rather than exact amounts. The AvocatCV CV builder lets you focus on these formulations: the layout is handled for you, and the resulting PDF remains readable by the screening software some firms use, which discards CVs whose structure cannot be parsed before any human reads them.
Frequently asked questions
Can I name a client who has given consent?
Yes, the client’s express and prior consent removes the obstacle, as the RIN provides for tenders. Keep a written record of that consent and check that your firm does not have a stricter policy.
Do I have to remove amounts to respect secrecy?
No, an order of magnitude does not breach secrecy if it does not make the case identifiable. Prefer a range (“several tens of millions of euros”) to an exact amount, especially for matters that were made public or that are very sector-specific.
Can I talk about a matter more freely in an interview than on the CV?
No. Secrecy applies orally as well as in writing. In an interview, you can explain your legal reasoning and your role in detail, never the client’s identity or details that would reveal it.
Is a trainee lawyer bound by secrecy for their PPI and internship?
Yes: trainee lawyers take an oath at the start of their training and are bound by secrecy for the matters they discover during their placements. The same anonymisation rules apply to their CV.