Opleo Avocats

The firm: Because making the right decision is the first step to creating value, Opleo’s mission involves working alongside key business leaders throughout their decision making.

Opleo Avocats is an independent law firm, created in 2012 by Pierre-Olivier Bernard, who is focused on delivering first-class results to the top executives and is underpinned by a clear set of values and behaviours that guide him and his team in everything they do.

The professional and personal lives of key business leaders are often closely intertwined. Each decision impacts their professional, personal or human capital. In order to respond to all their needs, Opleo Avocats has developed a set of services to specifically focus on professional capital, personal capital and human capital, the key drivers behind the virtuous circle of value creation.

Whether an entrepreneur, a business executive, a majority shareholder or a private investor, all key business leaders are at some point prompted to seek expert advice in relation to their virtuous circle of value creation depending on the particular phase of their career path or personal trajectory.

When clients seek the firm’s expertise for a particular matter, certain other cross-disciplinary capabilities are also mobilised. Opleo Avocats considers each key business person as, above all, a client of the firm rather than an individual lawyer, and the firm is structured in such a way that each client benefits from its lawyers’ collective capabilities in relation to their legal, tax, employment and wealth management matters.

Areas of practice
Personal capital: with a particular focus on companies, considered as an investment or as an asset for diversification of one’s own personal capital, Opleo combines its services with a comprehensive approach to the situation of its clients’ personal assets.

Opleo Avocats advises corporate executives and their key managers in negotiating and structuring their access to the capital stock of their company, most frequently through LBOs, or as advisors to majority shareholders or investors, in relation to their investment capital transactions.

Opleo Avocats provides all key business leaders with tailored services to comprehensively structure and manage their personal wealth, including structuring and managing real estate and fine art assets.

Human capital: Opleo Avocats advises both shareholding and non-shareholding executives in piloting their careers in France and abroad, as well as in managing and preventing professional liability claims. In relation to this, it has also developed a programme specifically focused on pre-empting and managing psycho-social risks and internal upheavals.

In advising its clients, Opleo Avocats particularly focuses on preventing and managing the reputational risks of corporate executives.

Opleo Avocats has expertise in international mobility issues affecting corporate executives and key managers. The firm also ensures assistance to key managers in France wishing to develop their activity abroad or those in foreign companies aiming to develop business in France.

Professional capital: the workplace is not only a means for key business leaders to demonstrate their talent, but it also represents a fundamental resource and asset in the case of family-owned businesses. Experienced in working with entrepreneurs who seek to create value for their company and for themselves, Opleo’s role extends from structuring professional real estate assets to managing a company’s image through sponsorship and funding activities. The firm regularly advises on matters involving both French and cross-border considerations.

Opleo Avocats advises entrepreneurs in all sectors and throughout all phases of their development, from organising corporate governance and relationships among shareholders, to organising the business transfer, as well as guiding them through corporate finance transactions.

Opleo Avocats also advises entrepreneurs who are concerned about their company’s image through sponsorship and fund contribution initiatives, particularly in the case of corporate foundations.