FELLOWS is a collaborative network of independent business lawyers, with an innovative approach – the Legal Pool©– combining individual expertise for our clients benefit.
OUR GOAL: EFFICIENCY AND VALUE-CREATION
We will defend and uphold your interests during business negotiations, mediation & transactions as well as represent your company in any legal disputes.
Our approach always starts with understanding the needs of your company as part of a long-term partnership.
Though all areas may be disrupted by new technologies, we rely on native intelligence, experience & mutual understanding – the human touch.
FELLOWS lawyers commit to transparent billing allows you to budget & optimise your legal costs. Specific fees are agreed with you to allow planning whilst our hourly rates range between €210 & €260. We can also offer tailored packages – such as monthly or annual subscriptions, lump-sum or success fees.
EXPERT, COLLABORATIVE , INNOVATIVE – ENGAGED, ORGANIC PARTNERS IN YOUR ECOSYSTEM
- act individually, as the central, day to day, legal contact/touchstone for your company, or
- offer you the services of a colleague in the network, specialized in other fields of business law to ensure you are always accessing the most appropriate and expert advice, or
- create a customised, expert team, specific to your case
The advantage of the FELLOWS Legal Network is the ability to offer you the opportunity to work one or all of our member safe in a simple and effective manner. All FELLOWS members operate on the same common, professional values.
FELLOWS is committed to independence, transparency and client confidentiality.
Lastly, our expertise is in dense ecosystems, the areas of high added value for your company such as: start-ups, incubators & clusters, investors and professional networks as well as consultancy in fields such as education & research, HR, CGP, business valuation & professional training.
FELLOWS Thinking
FELLOWS’ Legal Pool acts as a think tank, meeting monthly to review, discuss and reflect on :
- Development & news affecting the future of business and legal issues as well as the effect of new technologies
- Complex and multidisciplinary issues
- Experience and best practice
Team
FELLOWS lawyers are located in Paris and expert in all areas of business law.
Vincent Blondel
A member of the Paris Bar since 2003, I am primarily involved in corporate transactions and commercial law.
My primary concern are the financial implications of the issues at hand. My goal: value-creation.
My multidisciplinary approach enables the anticipation & identification of as yet unseen issues. And as part of FELLOWS network I can offer you, if required, the expert assistance of my colleagues in all areas of business law such as intellectual property, social & tax law etc.
I am also expert in contractual negotiation, litigation and restructuring matters.
Prior to co-founding FELLOWS legal network, I worked in notorious law firms: Toison & Associés, Toison Villey Broud, Kimbrough & Partners, Cornet Vincent Ségurel.
Contact Vincent : Vincent Blondel – avocat – 146, boulevard Malesherbes – 75017 Paris
2003: Qualified lawyer certificate
2002: Master II (LLM) in business / corporate law (University of Caen)
2001: Master II (LLM) in International and European law (University of Rouen)
2000: Master I (BA) in Private and European Law (Queen’s University of Belfast)
Cambridge Certificate of advanced English
1999: Master I (BA) in business law (University of Caen)
Hélène Rondelez
Business and corporate law.
A member of the Paris Bar since 2002, energetic and resourceful, Hélène is dedicated to entrepreneural endeavours.
Providing companies of all sizes, both French and foreign, with a sharp and multi-disciplinary legal mind focused on corporate, distribution, contract and labor law.
Hélène also provides support & expert advice on business disputes – with an emphasis, whenever possible, on alternative dispute resolution.
Since 2010 she has lectured in both corporate and commercial law at CentraleSupelec and is a member of ACE (Avocats Conseils d’Entreprises)
A Co-founder of Fellows, she fits perfectly the values of the network: value-creation, efficiency, and innovation.
Contact Hélène : Hélène Rondelez – avocat – 146, boulevard Malesherbes – 75017 Paris
2000: Master Degre in International Business Law (University of Toulouse)
2001: Master Degre in Environmental Law (University Paris I – Paris II)
2002: Professional Lawyer’s Certificate
Working in French and English.
Sophie Baudet
Attorney with the Paris Bar since 2010
Labor Law / social security / benefits
After having worked for 7 years in business law firms ALTERLEX and TOISON & Associés, as labor law counsel for large industrial companies, especially in the electrical and gas industries sector, and for small and mid-caps, in the industrial cleaning, building, transport and logistics sectors, I set-up my own firm in 2017.
In view of being a real decision-making partner for my clients, I adopt a pragmatic, tactical and transversal approach in the files I am in charge with:
- listening to customer expectations and advice for business-oriented solutions
- Anticipation of litigation risks when advising or drafting legal commitments
- Cross-cutting approach and identification of the issues in other legal areas.
In view of bringing a complete offer for my clients’ legal needs, I joined the FELLOWS lawyers network, which allows me to propose the assistance of colleagues in all areas of business law.
Contact Sophie : Sophie Baudet – avocat – 11, rue Saint-Lazare – 75009 Paris
2009: Qualified Lawyer certificate
2008: Master (LLM) in Business law, specialization in procedural law
Cambridge First Certificate of English (University of New South Wales)
News
FELLOWS lawyers are constantly on the lookout for new issues.
L’AAe (l’Acte d’Avocat électronique)
L’AAe (l’Acte d’Avocat électronique) : une solution de signature sécurisée et à distance pour les actes juridiques. La loi 2011-331 du 28 mars 2011 de modernisation des professions judiciaires ou juridiques et certaines professions réglementées avait consacré la...
Shareholders’ agreements : Beware of duration clauses!
Negotiating hard a shareholders’ agreement, is fine. Ensuring effectiveness of its rights is better. Parties to a shareholders' agreement must ensure that negotiated rights (in particular options to buy or sell securities) will not be terminated by the other parties...
Rappel sur le caractère libératoire de la clause pénale
Le juriste connait bien l’intérêt des clauses pénales, qui présentent pour le créancier d’une obligation le double avantage de (i) fixer à l’avance les sommes dues en cas d’inexécution (ou de retard dans l’exécution) de son débiteur et (ii) sur le terrain probatoire,...
Trackrecord
FELLOWS lawyers mainly work for small, mid-cap and start-ups, in the service, industry, engineering, audiovisual, telecom, logistics and distribution sectors.
Corporate and business law
- Negotiation of commercial leases, especially with institutional landlords.
- Drafting and negotiation of partnership contracts and other commercial contracts: distribution contracts, GCS, terms of use.
- Legal structuring of companies and groups: creation, evolution, restructuring, mergers, spin-off.
- Status of executives and corporate governance.
- handling group issues: regulated agreements and intra-group flows, arrangements, setting-up holding companies, spin-off operations, tax consolidation.
- Real estate issues and tax management.
M&A and private equity
- Counsel for a group of services for the acquisition of a competing group, by cash and exchange of shares: capital increase of the purchaser, realization of the audits, negotiation of the SPA and the R&Ws, reorganization of the group after integration.
- Advising an investment fund for the sale of a majority stake (M€ 20) held within an aeronautical equipment manufacturer, negotiating the SPA and the R&Ws, assistance from the transferor in the context of the control of foreign investments.
- Advising an international building and engineering group for various divestment operations in France, through the sale of several business units.
- Advising founders to carry out fundraising (from k€ 500 to M€ 15): negotiation of the term sheet, shareholders agreement, terms and conditions of the various share classes.
- Assistance of the founders for the sale of a consulting company, partial reinvestment in the holding company (LBO type), negotiation of the shareholders’ agreement.
- And more generally: various acquisitions of majority stockholding, negotiation of R&W’s, mergers in regulated sectors (health, audiovisual), issuance of debt securities or complex equity securities (BSA, OC , ORABSA).
Restructuring and insolvency issues
- Assistance of a mid-cap company (automotive supplier) in the context of the prevention of insolvency: conduct of conciliation proceedings, negotiation of a debt reduction plan with the creditors under the authority of the French Economy Ministry, then assignment to an investment fund.
- Assistance of franchise or affiliated retailers in the context of insolvency of the head company.
- Assisting a mid-cap company in opening a judicial receivership and negotiating a total asset assignment plan.
- More generally: prevention of companies’ difficulties, assistance of companies in the context of difficulties of their customers, suppliers or contractors, submission of assignment offers before commercial courts.
Litigation
- Advising the purchaser of a software development company for the enforcement of the Reps & warranties agreement. Conducting a judicial expertise on the software conformity, leading to a 60% price reduction.
- Counsel for an energy company in the context of a dispute over the conformity of an industrial equipment; Conducting a judicial expertise concluding a repairable loss of 17M €, followed by a settlement agreement.
- Advising sellers in the context of a legal action aiming to declare null and void an assignment agreement (transport / logistics company) for fraud.
- More generally: commercial litigation and building litigation
Labor Law / Counseling
- Drafting of employment agreements: clauses designed for the needs of the company and the specificities of certain functions (variable remuneration, working time, non-competition, geographical mobility, etc.).
- Advice and implementation of layoffs, negotiated termination, drafting of settlement agreements.
- Assistance when negotiating employee terminations and drafting settlement agreements.
- Advising on the implementation of profit-sharing plans, employee savings plans and drafting of incentive agreements.
Labor law / litigation
- Advice for and implementation of disciplinary sanction procedures,
- Counsel for companies before labor relations tribunals and courts in cases of individual and collective labor litigations,
- Counsel of employers in case of investigations by the Labor Inspection Administration (hidden work, illegal posting of foreign workers, illegal transfer of employees).
Labor law / organization of the company
- Realization of labor law compliance audits, with assessment of the issues and litigation risks.
- Drafting of the company’s in-house rulings, of teleworking agreements including a charter consistent with the latest statutory updates.
- Legal advice of companies before the implementation of internal reorganization schemes.
- Assistance in the organization of professional elections and the appointment of employees’ representation committees.
- Working time: analysis of possible working time solutions in the company and advice for their implementation (drafting of annual working days –arrangements for managers and a charter about the disconnection of working tools).
Social Security Law
- Advice in case of work accidents and occupational diseases and defense of employers before the courts.
- Operational advice in the context of work accidents and occupational diseases: assistance for the administrative declarations and follow-up of the file during the investigations by the social security or other insurance institutions.
- Litigation concerning coverage of work accidents and occupational diseases before the administration (CRA) and / or before the courts of Social Security.
- Assistance and representation of companies before the Social Security Affairs Tribunal (TASS) and the Court of Appeal.
Criminal labor law
- Advice and assistance during the criminal investigation following a work accident.
- Advice and assistance of employers in the event of criminal liability.
Commercial Agreement
- Negotiation and drafting of commercial lease agreements, in particular with financial institutions.
- Negotiation and drafting of partnership, commercial agreements and distribution agreements.
- Drafting of general terms and conditions of sale, purchase, or use.
- Drafting of Tolling agreements.