This is the second story in a series about law firms and lobbying in Brussels.

In Washington, D.C., a city with legions of lawyer-lobbyists, law firms have long exerted a deep influence on public policy. But in Brussels, the nerve center of EU lawmaking and the city with the second-highest number of professional lobbyists, that has not traditionally been the case. With a few exceptions, most elite law firms in Brussels stuck to the practice of law and left the lobbying to the city’s hundreds of public affairs consultancies.