Erwan Jonchères, Lawyer, Barreau du Québec
Erwan Jonchères is a lawyer in Montreal and the founder of Satoshi Legal. He has been a member of the Barreau du Québec since 2018, and his practice is concentrated in technology law, the protection of personal information, artificial intelligence governance, technology contracts, intellectual property and business law.
A significant share of his clients are organisations established outside Quebec that have become subject to Quebec law because they have customers, employees or operations in the province. Much of his work therefore consists of setting out how Quebec rules differ from the ones those organisations already apply, and what has to change as a result.
Training in two legal traditions
Erwan Jonchères studied law in France before settling in Quebec. He holds a law degree (2011) and a Master 1 in business law (2012) from Université Paris Descartes, and an LL.M. in technology law from Université de Montréal (2016). He was called to the Barreau du Québec in 2018.
That path matters for the clients he serves. Quebec is a civil law jurisdiction, and its private law rests on the Civil Code of Québec rather than on common law precedent. Having trained first in a civil law system and then practised in North America, he is used to explaining why a clause that works in an Ontario or a US agreement may not produce the same effect in Quebec.
Before founding Satoshi Legal, he was an articling lawyer at Haas Avocats in Paris, working in intellectual property and technology law, a research assistant at the Cyberjustice Laboratory in Montreal, and a founding associate of Lex Start Avocats.
Practice
His day to day work covers Law 25 (An Act to modernize legislative provisions as regards the protection of personal information) compliance reviews, privacy impact assessments (PIA), assessments of communications of personal information outside Quebec, governance policies and practices, confidentiality incident handling and dealings with the Commission d’accès à l’information du Québec (CAI).
He acts as an outsourced Privacy Officer (person in charge of the protection of personal information) for organisations that have no one in Quebec able to assume the role, and supports internal Privacy Officers who do.
On the contractual side, he drafts and negotiates SaaS agreements, software licences, data processing terms, development and integration contracts, and intellectual property assignments and licences, on both the customer side and the supplier side.
He also advises on artificial intelligence governance, including the Quebec rules on decisions based exclusively on automated processing, the information owed to affected individuals, and the contractual terms that govern the use of AI tools and the data they ingest.
Teaching and training
Erwan Jonchères teaches and delivers professional training on technology law and the protection of personal information. He is a trainer in the Isarta catalogue, and he has taught at Université du Québec en Outaouais (2023), Polytechnique Montréal (2022), ESG UQAM (2021) and Université de Sherbrooke, as well as at the Cyberjustice Laboratory summer school.
The teaching work shapes the client work. Explaining a statutory regime to a room of students or professionals is a useful discipline for explaining it to a management committee that has twenty minutes and a decision to make.
Writing
He is the author of columns and articles published by the Blogue du CRL (Jeune Barreau de Montréal), Extrajudiciaire, Lex Electronica and the Cyberjustice Laboratory, on subjects including blockchain and cryptocurrency regulation, the legal treatment of virtual environments, pseudonymisation and anonymisation, and artificial intelligence. He speaks regularly at conferences on cybersecurity and Law 25 compliance.
Community involvement
He is a member of the Information Technology Committee of the Young Bar Association of Montreal, and a director of Perspective Autonomie en Santé Mentale.
Working languages
Erwan Jonchères works in French and in English. Instructions, meetings and written advice can be in either language, and documents intended for use in Quebec are prepared with the applicable language requirements in mind. For clients whose head office operates in English but whose Quebec facing documents must exist in French, both versions can be produced.
Jurisdiction
Erwan Jonchères is a member of the Barreau du Québec and practises Quebec law. Satoshi Legal does not provide legal services governed by the law of another Canadian province or territory. Where a matter engages the law of another province, another country or a federal regime outside the firm’s practice, he works with your counsel in that jurisdiction or refers the question to counsel admitted there.
This page is biographical information. It is not legal advice, and consulting it does not create a solicitor client relationship.
Book a conversation
If you have a Quebec law question and want to know whether it falls within this practice, book an initial consultation at satoshilegal.cliogrow.com/book, write to bonjour@satoshi.legal, or call +1 438 506-1792. The firm is based in Montreal (Quebec) and works with clients across Canada, the United States and Europe on Quebec law matters.