Nicolas Paganelli built his independent criminal defense practice in Paris's 17th arrondissement the day he took his oath as a lawyer, January 17, 2018, after training at the Paris Bar School following a law degree from Paris II Panthéon-Assas. Of Corsican heritage, he started his career at the Bobigny court, known even among French lawyers for its difficult caseload and conditions, before building a practice that now spans general criminal law, white-collar defense, financial fraud, money laundering and cryptocurrency-related cases.
His approach to the work leaves no room for guesswork. “Approximation is prohibited,” he says of criminal matters, describing his method as pairing a deep read of each case with rigorous argument and enough creative strategy to convince a judge through what he calls surgical precision.
That same precision extends to how he shows up in court. Paganelli treats a lawyer's appearance as a form of respect rather than vanity, noting that judges register details like a clean robe, polished shoes and a properly tied tie as signals of how seriously an attorney is taking the room. Off the clock, he trains in Thai boxing at least three times a week and avoids smoking and weekday drinking, describing criminal defense itself as close to a high-level sport in the stress it demands managing.
