The traditionally stable Brussels legal market received a shock last month with the announcement that Lawfort, one of Belgium’s largest firms by headcount, was to dissolve.
Lawfort, which was founded in 1997 and at one time had 125 lawyers across offices in Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent and Liege, was until 2002 a member of the Landwell legal network operated by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Since severing ties with the accountancy giant, local partners had remarked that the firm had seen much of its work dry up. In 2005 it was reported that the firm was in talks with other former Landwell firms, such as German independent Heussen and Perola in Italy, about building a new alliance – the effects of legislation banning multi-disciplinary partnerships were being felt across Europe.
