Didier Moutard’s private practice career prior to moving in-house was highly successful, and saw him amass a wealth of technical legal expertise in the offices of Clifford Chance for 15 years. Deciding to move in-house after this, he took on the general counsel role for management consultancy firm Stam Europe before moving to Groupe Duval in 2003. During this time, the group has grown considerably and absorbed other companies.

Now, in addition to having around €700m in annual turnover, the company has €1.9bn in assets, €20bn in real estate and is the number one owner and operator of golf courses in Europe. Moutard mentions a number of highlights of his time as an in-house lawyer: ‘My main highlight has been to set up European real estate investment funds, which were covering a number of countries within Europe, including hundreds of millions of euro-value transactions. Another rewarding aspect has been the introduction of information systems to the function. As we are in charge of 600 companies around the world, I have put in place an integrated company management system that assists in preparing all corporate documentation, and has freed up multiple in-house lawyers to work on other projects’.

This highly important project is part of a group-wide technology revolution involving managers and directors across the company, and Moutard’s significant role in this is just one example of the major impact he has had on the company’s capabilities. An in-house lawyer who is at the forefront of his profession, Moutard is forward thinking and stays abreast of developments in the industry. He has the following advice to give his contemporaries: ‘I would ask them to think about what their role would be within five to ten years, as we are in one of the professions which is going to change the most in this time. We as lawyers need to think about this and, if done properly, this will give a tremendous competitive advantage to companies that try to shape the new market rather than react to it. We have a number of possibilities to do so. For someone that is interested in the subject there are many start-ups and other smaller companies with brilliant ideas that can be learned from and incorporated’.