As a child, Géraldine Veya was curious and loved exploring all kinds of nooks, crannies, valleys and hills. She wanted to be either an archaeologist, a surgeon or a lawyer: people who research, investigate, delve deep into their subjects. She’s always liked unpacking what makes people tick, what stirs their emotions: the outbursts, excesses and urges that cause people to act or react, to make mistakes and to forgive. She tries to understand what makes us human. She doesn’t shy away from confronting the fears and influences that sometimes cause us to stray from the straight and narrow.

A devotee of Jacques Vergès, Zweig and Tolstoy, Géraldine won the history prize in her final year at Neuchâtel’s Lycée Denis-de-Rougemont secondary school.

She’s a maverick who always tries to make sure she acts in accordance with her values. Never submissive, she wants to break the mould and fight injustice, unconcerned about what others may think.

The story that led her to Legal.fact includes a year spent studying European, international and competition law in Florence. While at university there, she encountered different cultures and spent many hours looking around the city’s museums and history-filled streets. During her time in Florence, she also acquired a keen interest in the law of art, which combines two of her main passions.

Over the next few years, she worked at two leading business law firms: Python Peter Schifferli et Associés in Lausanne and ZPG Avocats in Geneva. She loved the excitement and urgency of dealing with legal matters that simply cannot wait. It was during that time that she was drawn to business and commercial law, the drafting of domestic and international contracts, negotiation and litigation strategy. She sometimes worked together with other firms in Switzerland and abroad, and greatly enjoyed the deep thinking, dedication and commitment her work required. She helped and guided many businesses at all stages of their journey, from start-up, through development and restructuring, to buy-out. She has extensive experience in company law disputes and regularly advises businesses in proceedings involving executives, directors and shareholders. She is a member of several non-profit organisations.

Géraldine is also passionate about criminal law and white-collar crime: she defends liberty in all its forms, seeking to enable everyone to challenge allegations and have their voices heard, while accepting their occasional inconsistencies in an unforgiving world.

She is a keen proponent of the adversarial principle, and has a deep-rooted aversion to injustice. Géraldine Veya loves to help people understand the truth about her imperfect clients, where they’ve come from, their backgrounds. She seeks to capture her clients’ humanity, with sincerity and without judging or prejudging them.