Major Franco-Belgian legal and accounting event held in Lille

The event was organized by Bruno Contestin (Vice-President of AFJE in charge of regions and President of Les Places Juridiques), Anne de Wolf (Honorary General Manager of the Belgian Institute of Company Lawyers), and Simon Vander Putten (Secretary-General of Belgian Company Lawyers).

The event brought together 28 professionals from the legal world (including court presidents, magistrates, bar presidents, lawyers, corporate counsel, notaries, and bailiffs) and the accounting sector (accountants, statutory auditors, and company auditors), to discuss current trends and challenges in their professions on both sides of the border. Les Places Juridiques aims to promote legal and accounting professionals in the Hauts-de-France region of northern France, notably by focusing on innovation and the integration of people with disabilities.

Bruno Contestin stated that legal and accounting professionals have a real role to play in local economic development through their ability to create value for companies

The day’s discussions focused on current developments and challenges.

All the presidents of the courts agreed on the importance of publishing judicial decisions and the need to find a balance between transparency and privacy.

Notaries and bailiffs stressed the attractiveness of their professions to the young and highlighted the digitization phenomenon. The introduction of artificial intelligence was viewed in an optimistic light, for its potential to automate repetitive tasks, allowing professionals to focus on their primary mission of strengthening relationships with their economic partners while providing a 360-degree view to their clients.

Accountants and statutory auditors emphasized the need to support their firms as they made the digital transformation by valuing the interpretation of numerical data in connection with real-world situations.

Moreover, corporate lawyers stressed the strategic importance of keeping professional exchanges confidential, a principle already established in Belgium but remains a challenge in France, especially against foreign companies that ensure this confidentiality.

The event also explored two topics dear to the association: Innovation and the inclusion of people with disabilities.

Innovation was the focus of much attention, particularly  for the notary and bailiff professions, as was made clear by the testimonies of Alexandre Deswarte, President of the Chamber of Notaries of Nord Pas de Calais, and Laurent Dekerle, Vice-President of the Regional Chamber of Commissioners of Nord Pas de Calais, regarding two current initiatives, which received awards during the second edition of the Innovation and Performance Gran Prix, a ceremony aiming to showcase the latest innovations that bring significant added value to internal or external clients.

One is a solution to ensure the preservation of dematerialized orders for mutations, developed jointly between the Chamber of Notaries of Nord Pas de Calais and that of Paris. The other is a solution for the dematerialized conservation and transmission of information during successions. This solution addresses a growing issue by facilitating data transmission at the time of death in an era where families are increasingly geographically dispersed. With a dematerialized key, the notary can access all the deceased's documents (photos, official documents, etc.). For example, when selling a property, this same portfolio standard will allow the transfer of quotes for work and invoices to the buyer.

Behind these practical use cases was an equally innovative "project" approach. Indeed, the notaries of Hauts de France partnered with Lille-based Euratechnologie, France’s second-largest incubator. It was the meeting of these two worlds, two generations, and then the sharing of ideas "in project mode" based on exchanges between needs and fields of possibilities that led to these two technological and economic initiatives.

In conclusion, Bruno Contestin reminded us that legal and accounting professionals have a real role to play in local economic development through their ability to create value for companies and through several of the association’s recent initiatives, designed to allow the young, particularly those with disabilities, to pursue a career in these promising professions by facilitating their integration into the professional world.