“Patrick Larchevêque started his career in 1988 as an in-house specialist corporate lawyer for a real estate company, something he claims brought him the ‘rigor’ that prepared him for the sector. After he obtained his legal qualification, he quickly wanted to evolve towards a much more suitable role for his professional temperament and his aspiration: real estate law. In 1999, Larchevêque was in charge of creating a department within Bail Investissement, bringing together all legal services focused on real estate.

In 2005, after the company was merged by Foncière des Régions, and with his experience in the area, he was entrusted with the task of setting up the legal department within the company, essentially focusing on real estate French private and public law. The department has now grown to include six lawyers all specialising in real estate law, and involved in development, acquisition or disposal operations and real estate management. Larchevêque has been able to manage the operations on a large scope despite the challenge of ensuring the legal team provide the operational staff with quality legal services. Indeed, he has successfully trained the team to apply sufficient flexibility to put in place the necessary resources to meet the needs expressed.

Larchevêque has done this by setting up each operational team with its own technical legal contact person: ‘This meant setting up training courses for in-house lawyers and leaving them a great deal of autonomy in their profession and consequently setting up a management system adapted to this situation’,says Larchevêque.