New IP boutique launches in Brussels

Lawyers from Field Fisher Waterhouse LLP and Allen & Overy LLP have left their firms to form an IP boutique in Belgium.

Thierry van Innis (below left), formerly of counsel at Field Fisher Waterhouse LLP in Brussels, has quit his position alongside Dieter Delarue (below right), a senior associate at Allen & Overy LLP, also in Brussels.

The pair will be co-launching a new firm called Van Innis & Delarue (V&D).

According to its website, the firm, which will have offices in Antwerp and Brussels, will focus primarily on IP but will advise clients on various related matters including unfair competition and commercial contracts.

“Our firm is new, but we are not. We are backed by more than forty years of experience at leading international law firms,” a statement on the V&D website said.

On the decision, Van Innis said numerous clients of his had worked with IP boutique law firms and had praised the model as enabling lawyers to be “as passionate and innovative as they [the clients] are about brands, creations and inventions."

Van Innis added, “they deliver the right mix of experience and specialisation on one hand, and availability and a personal touch on the other hand,”

“While the specialised boutique is a law firm model which is commonly used in Belgium for other specialist areas such as tax and employment law, it is relatively new for IP matters,” Delarue added.

“Our mission is to provide clients with the highest possible quality of service. We are pleased to begin working with a small group of people who know each other, who have worked together before, and who are all dedicated to excellence in advocacy.”

Van Innis and Delarue previously worked together at Allen & Overy, until Van Innis’s move to Field Fisher Waterhouse.

Former Allen & Overy associate Heidi Waem will also be joining the firm.