Renaud Beauchard is an attorney with 13 years of experience in France and the United States. He holds law degrees from Cambridge, Tulane and Poitiers, and has both practiced and taught law. Mr. Beauchard is a French national fluent in English.
While practicing in France, Mr. Beauchard specialized in matters concerning admiralty, commercial law, international trade, transportation and international commercial litigation and arbitration. He assisted in major tort and environmental cases, including the "Erika" and "Mont Blanc" cases. Mr. Beauchard has practiced and taught French employment law, and has also taught French civil procedure. Mr. Beauchard is a rule of law consultant for the Access to Justice component of the Compact Agreement between the Government of Benin and the Millennium Challenge Corporation. Mr. Beauchard has also served as a Consultant to the World Bank Office of Evaluation and Suspension.
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Professional History
In 1993-1994, Mr. Beauchard received his Bachelor of Law and then his Post-Graduate Degree in Private Law from the University of Poitiers. He was in the top 10% of his class for both degrees. In 1997, Mr. Beauchard received his LL.M. from Cambridge University, where he studied comparative law, international sales and jurisprudence.
Between 1994 and 1998 (excepting his time at Cambridge), Mr. Beauchard served as a case analyst for JurisData, France's major legal database. He also taught well-attended employment law and civil procedure courses at the University of Poitiers.
In 1999, Mr. Beauchard joined Holman Fenwick & Willan as an associate. In that capacity, he managed admiralty, cargo, collision, international trade and insurance litigation, and handled a criminal case involving maritime pollution. Later in 1999, Mr. Beauchard moved to Ménard Quimbert and Partners, where he worked on like matters, as well as on maritime and shipbuilding contracts, a complex antitrust dispute, and litigation concerning plant-acquisition, employment and personal injury matters. He also separately served pro bono as a public defender in Nantes for criminal and deportation cases.
In 2000, Mr. Beauchard was named a senior associate at Bouloy Grellet & Godin. In this capacity, he argued before courts and arbitral tribunals, assisted in the drafting of a complex arbitral award, performed vessel and aircraft arrests, and enforced foreign judgments. He assisted in major environmental litigation (such as the Erika spill case) and in the management of the "Mont Blanc" case, which involved a tunnel collapse involving dozens of fatalities and the multi-year closure of a major French highway.
In 2004, Mr. Beauchard left France to undertake the JD program at Tulane University in New Orleans. Owing to the ravages of Hurricane Katrina, he also attended the University of Denver's Sturm College of Law for part of his program. While at Tulane, Mr. Beauchard assisted Catholic Charities of New Orleans with translations and asylum hearings on behalf of francophone African refugees. He interned with Judge Homberg Wicker of Louisiana's 24th Judicial District, for whom he prepared bench memoranda in preparation for hearings. He later interned with the Office of the Colorado Attorney General, for which he drafted motions and memoranda with respect to a major land dispute and administrative law matters.
After completing his JD program in 2006, Mr. Beauchard served for a short time as a law clerk with Catholic Charities, dealing with asylum and Violence Against Women Act immigration applications. In 2007, Mr. Beauchard moved to Washington, D.C., where he was named Director of International Business Development at the Washington Times. In this capacity, Mr. Beauchard traveled to West Africa and gained valuable insights into government and business concerns there. In July 2008, Mr. Beauchard decided to return to the law. He joined the Law Offices at its founding, and focuses on African and rule of law matters.
In March 2009, Mr. Beauchard was appointed as a Consultant to the Millennium Challenge Corporation. He has in this capacity provided technical assistance for the Access to Justice component of the Compact Agreement between the Government of Benin and the Millennium Challenge Corporation. Mr. Beauchard has provided evaluation, monitoring and due diligence services to assist the implementation of the Access to Justice Component. Mr. Beauchard has assisted on case management and on procedural reforms. He has participated in meetings with the Minister of Justice, and his draft management plan on the adoption of efficient judicial practices and due-process guarantees was transformed into a ministerial letter of instruction (circulaire). In order to harmonize actions between donors, Mr. Beauchard has facilitated coordination efforts with the European Union's delegation to Benin. Mr. Beauchard also assisted with the sole-source hiring of a permanent international technical assistance team previously under contract with the European Union, and worked with a technical consultant to implement an automated case-tracking system for the courts of Benin. Mr. Beauchard undertook capacity-building efforts at the Benin Ministry of Justice to increase awareness of information-technology policies. Mr. Beauchard also worked to reduce the number of backlogged cases by promoting the adoption of good professional practices.
Mr. Beauchard assisted the MCC's local counterpart, MCA-Benin, on the implementation of a new code of civil, commercial, administrative and labor procedure. Mr. Beauchard provided due-diligence services in connection with the expansion of the Benin Chamber of Commerce's arbitration center, the improvement of the Benin Business Registration Center, and the creation of the Benin Legal Information Center. Mr. Beauchard assisted MCA-Benin and its procurement agent with preparing terms of reference for contractors, and with managing contracts in place. Mr. Beauchard made an extensive contribution to the design and monitoring of a legal aid program aimed at micro, small and medium businesses, market women, motorcycle and taxi owners, local elected officials, farmers, and farmers' cooperatives. Mr. Beauchard also conducted outreach to civil-society associations and organizations with the purpose of involving them in the conception and operation of the Benin Legal Information Center.
From August 2009 to April 2011, Mr. Beauchard served as a Consultant to the World Bank's Office of Evaluation and Suspension (OES). In this capacity, Mr. Beauchard assisted the Evaluation and Suspension Officer in the consideration of recommended sanctions against allegedly fraudulent, corrupt, coercive or obstructionist companies or individuals. He also advised OES on comparative law issues and sanctions policy.
Chapter on the subject of insurance for sailing boats in "Private Individuals and Their Insurance Contracts" (Litec, 1st ed. 2003) (a widely-used professional textbook).
Chapter on the subject of vessel arrests in "The Theory and Practice of Enforcing Judgements and Rights" (Dalloz, 2d ed. 2001, 3d. ed. 2004, 4th ed. 2006) (a widely-used professional textbook).
Institut International de Droit d'Expression et d'Inspiration Françaises (IDEF)
