Eline Schwitzguébel, Lawyer, Centre Social Protestant and Labour Inspectorate, City of Lausanne

The mission of the SPC's legal sector is to enable everyone to find out about their rights and obligations, and to defend their interests to the best of their ability. To do this, we provide free legal advice throughout the canton. We receive a wide range of people and offer them a sympathetic ear and a great deal of support, as they are often powerless to cope with what is happening to them. We deal with a wide range of issues, which is a real asset: immigration law, tenancy law, employment law, social insurance law and family law. We also carry out external consultations at the regional social centres (CSR), between two and four times a month. The people we see can then be taken on at the CSP, depending on the situation. As part of my work at the Labour Inspectorate, I run information desks where anyone living or working in Lausanne can come to seek answers to problems relating to employment law. We listen to their questions and offer them the fullest possible answers; if necessary, we redirect them to other departments that are better placed to deal with their queries, as we do not follow up cases. I really appreciate the complementary nature of my two jobs. I'm able to develop useful knowledge and skills that complement each other and enrich my day-to-day professional practice.

After my Bachelor's degree in law, I found it hard to see what career prospects there were outside the legal profession, which didn't appeal to me. I went on to do a Master's degree, during which I did a one-week observation placement during the summer at the Centre Social Protestant (CSP) in Lausanne, which was revealing in terms of my professional objectives: I discovered that it was quite possible to combine social work and legal work. So I chose to specialise in employment law and social security. In September of the same year, the CSP contacted me again to offer me a replacement. The CSP then offered me a permanent part-time position, following a departure from the team. I then looked for a part-time job, which I was lucky enough to find with the City of Lausanne's Labour Inspectorate.

During my Master's degree, I was hired first as a trainee and then at a reduced rate by the Fédération Romande des Consommateurs. I worked there for several months as a legal trainee, which taught me how to carry out legal research and gave me a practical foot in the door. University studies provide us with an excellent theoretical background in terms of knowledge, but there's a lack of practical experience. My advice for overcoming this is to do work placements during your studies! What's more, it will give you experience of different jobs and give you a better idea of where you want to go. To work in a department like the CSP or the labour inspectorate, you need to be comfortable with human contact and want to work with people. So you need to be able to provide support and welcome people, and have a strong sense of empathy. It's not always easy to deal with situations, because I sometimes find myself working with people whose lives have been very difficult. At the SPC in particular, the ability to work independently is central. We hold a weekly meeting with all the SPC's lawyers to discuss our cases, but beyond these meetings, I'm independent in my work, which I consider to be a blessing. It also requires a good capacity for stress management and excellent organisational skills: when we have to lodge appeals, for example, we are sometimes exposed to very tight deadlines and we have to be able to complete the process despite everything.

My first piece of advice would be to develop your academic and professional career by taking things step by step. When you start your studies, you become aware of the reality of training. At that point, it's important to ask yourself whether you really like the field, whether it's going to lead you to the career you want, what difficulties you'll have to overcome to get there, what other possibilities there are, and so on. It's important to find out about the content of the Masters course, and to do work experience placements in companies, law firms or courts, and to talk to professionals whenever the opportunity arises. The chances of landing a good job increase for lawyers who have passed the bar exam. So if your aim is to do a traineeship as a lawyer after you've completed your Master's degree, my advice is very simple: apply during your Master's degree, because places are very hard to come by. If, unfortunately, you don't find a traineeship place straight after the Master's, don't get discouraged and look for a position as a lawyer or court clerk in parallel, in order to gain experience and increase your chances of finding a traineeship place as a lawyer. My second piece of advice is to learn or improve your German. The French-speaking part of Switzerland is very small and, as a lawyer in French-speaking Switzerland, I regularly receive requests from clients for cases to be handled in German in courts in German-speaking Switzerland. As my level of German does not allow me to deal with these cases in the best possible way, I refer these clients to bilingual lawyers. However, don't panic, my diary is quite full with cases that will be handled in French!