Partner Alexandre Brugière and senior associate Barbara Chapron are part of the Corporate Department of Paris-based law firm Coblence avocats. Specialized in business law, Coblence avocats advises its clients (companies, investment funds, entrepreneurs, and managers) on various transactions.
Both users of Closd for more than a year, Mr. Brugière and Mrs. Chapron agreed to share their experience with the platform, and the benefits of bringing together different tools on the same platform, especially the electronic signature module.
Closd: Could you please introduce us to Coblence avocats?
Alexandre Brugière (AB): Coblence Avocats was founded in 1984 and will celebrate its 40th anniversary next year. The firm has evolved over the years to become a leading “multi-niche” business law firm. We advise French and international clients in the context of various transactions and general business law needs. The firm currently counts 12 partners and 50 lawyers in 7 departments: Corporate – M&A, Tax, Restructuring – insolvency proceedings, Real Estate/Construction, Employment Law – employees and managers, IP/IT, and Business Litigation.
The department that uses Closd is the Corporate – M&A department, which includes 3 partners (Ludovic Dorès, Marion Fabre, and myself) and 10 associates, including 4 senior associates of which Barbara Chapron.
Within the Corporate – M&A department, we mainly handle small and mid-cap transactions up to €150 million in enterprise value. We mainly manage two types of operations: transactional operations (acquisitions, sales, private equity operations (LBO, MBO, OBO, venture capital, development capital), and group reorganization operations (mergers, group reorganization, etc.).
We carry out an average of 30 to 40 transactions per year in which we mainly use Closd’s legal transaction mangement solution.
What convinced you to use the platform? What are your favorite features?
AB: Before adopting Closd, we were already using electronic signature solutions like Docusign. The main advantage of Closd is that it integrates both a document-sharing space (which is very practical to build closing deliveries and share documents and appendices throughout the process), and an electronic signature module, which allows us to choose between two providers (Docusign or Certeurope), on the same platform. We are also delighted to now have access to a more advanced data room solution, which allows us to benefit from improved features in a secure environment.
For us, the main advantage is that it allows us to manage the operation all the way through, from the sharing of documents to the automated generation of closing binders, and this is what made us choose Closd. We feel it was designed by lawyers, and that the solution takes into account the problems and needs that we are likely to encounter on a daily basis.
Barbara Chapron (BC): I would also like to mention a feature that comes in quite handy when finalizing the documents before signing: the possibility to upload updated versions of the documents on the platform, to which the parties’ counsels will make various improvements to achieve the final document. This makes it possible to build up a history of the different versions of the documents and avoid getting lost in endless email exchanges.
Closd helps us create appendices more easily, in the case of share transfer agreements for example. The platform’s sub-folders system allows us to manage different versions of the same document, which greatly facilitates communication between counsels, especially at the very end when it can be quite intense.
How would you assess your experience with Closd? What are the main strengths of the platform?
AB: The main strength of the platform is that it combines several of our needs in the same space. The tool remains quite intuitive and simple, and we are satisfied with it.
BC: Closd brings a real fluidity in the preparation of documents, and provides a global vision of the documents that are sent for signing.
Thanks to Mr Brugière and Mrs Chapron for their testimony. If you want to learn more about Closd, schedule a demo now!
