[LUM#17] Legal Geek
Simon Mareschal de Charentenay is a legal researcher and blockchain expert. As an advocate for LegalTech, he offers companies an innovative solution for digitizing their financial securities (stocks, bonds, etc.). This technology is used by the MonJuridique.infogreffe platform and was awarded the University of Montpellier’s Innovation Prize in 2020.
“Blockchain has become my specialty,” says Simon Mareschal de Charentenay. “It’s the focus of my research and my passion, and it has led me to become an entrepreneur in this innovative sector.” ” And it was to meet the needs of the legal world that this legal researcher, with the help of a few partners, developed a technology to digitize share registers and general meeting records on a blockchain network. A small revolution in shareholder management that has certainly caught the attention of the giant Infogreffe, which markets this product under the name MonJuridique.infogreffe.
Managing Shareholder Relations
“There are currently 3.5 million privately held companies in France. Most of them manage their equity securities on paper,” the researcher continues. Equity securities are financial instruments that allow investors to provide funds to a company in exchange for a return. “These paper documents circulate from buyers to sellers or between law firms, carrying a significant risk of loss,” explains the researcher. “Digitization provides a basic level of security, but the real difference comes with blockchain, as it makes share ownership legally enforceable.” " By offering greater visibility into the movement of financial securities, MonJuridique.infogreffe also becomes a true tool for managing shareholdings, one that has already attracted more than 18,000 companies since its launch in July 2021. "
Professional hybridity
It was in 2016 that the “blockchain bug” bit the young researcher specializing in legal theory. He entered and navigated this “ fascinating ” world of tech geeks armed with his legal expertise. “Blockchain is a regulatory system in its own right; it’s a kind of autonomous legal system designed to be an alternative to the traditional legal system.” ” Driven by this passion, he met with computer scientists and engineers with whom he launched a startup. The engineers worked on blockchain technology, while the lawyer sought to “develop new regulatory frameworks capable of meeting regulatory security requirements,” receiving support for this endeavor from both his laboratory and the Faculty of Law and Political Science. “ I could not have created this professional hybridity if CERCOP* and my university had not given me the freedom to venture into this complex forest to bring back a few gems.”
Montpellier-Stanford
These gems are now benefiting the Faculty of Law and Political Science, as Simon Mareschal de Charentenay launched a specialized university degree program there in 2021 focused on LegalTech and certified by Stanford’s Codex—one of the best, if not the best, research centers dedicated to LegalTech in the world. “I call it the Netflix degree: entirely online, open to all nationalities, offering an immersion in Google’s legal departments, and featuring American professors who film themselves strolling through Silicon Valley… It’s very fresh! ” An “
” way for this pioneer to blaze his own trail while demonstrating that a law degree can open up “hybrid careers where the university isn’t just a distributor of knowledge but a driver of innovation.” Enough to spark a whole chain of vocations…
*CERCOP (UM)
UM podcasts are now available on your favorite platform (Spotify, Deezer, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, etc.).