CSR

Doing Business Responsibly

The way we do business reflects what we stand for.

We cherish the fact that our work as lawyers can make this world a better place. We know that sometimes seeking justice is hindered by the costs it entails and therefore many people have no opportunity to have their problems being legally addressed.

To give back to our community, we ensure that every year each one of our team handles at least two pro-bono cases that we chose with care and attention. Our selection process is based on the following criteria:

The case represents legal injustice, demonstrates a level of complexity that requires labor law expertise and may also involve tax or corporate law input – that is the area in which our team specializes
The client has limited financial resources and is not entitled to legal aid
There is no conflict of interest with our existing clients.

We handle these cases either free of charge or at a significantly reduced rate. Facilitating the access of these individuals, organizations and companies to justice is a very rewarding experience.

Examples of our recent pro-bono work include:

Legal assistance to a museum in Amsterdam facing severe financial distress due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Ongoing pro-bono advice and referrals to a law firm in Amsterdam that provides legal assistance exclusively to individuals from socially disadvantaged groups with a lack of access to legal aid resources.

Investing in the Future

We feel blessed that we have studied and now work in the profession we love. We strongly believe that we can help a young generation of lawyers to grow and develop professionally through our guidance /mentoring and by allowing them to work on real-life matters, with a certain level of independence.

We cooperate with various universities / colleges and offer internships to students who have either just graduated or are in their final stages of their law studies. We expect them to share our passion for the legal profession, commitment, and ambition to excel at work. In return, we offer our interns and trainees a friendly environment that prepares them for a successful career built on respect for colleagues, care for clients and of course plenty of fun and enjoyment.

We are proud to be an important part in our trainees’ first steps in their careers and we look forward to seeing them become the next generation top lawyers.

Justice, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (“JEDI”)

Justice and Equality form the foundation for Diversity and Inclusion. Our team members are all experienced professionals who studied, worked, and lived in different countries and come from a variety of cultural backgrounds. We are all different in terms of personalities as well.

As we operate in an international environment, advising clients from various countries and guiding them through the Dutch legal maze it is essential that we are both responsive and culturally sensitive. We are genuinely interested in where our clients come from and want them to have the best experience in their business dealings in and with the Netherlands.

Environment

We apply many green policies within our small office such as recycling almost everything in our office, reducing to zero paper usage, banning single-use plastics and using energy-saving electricity bulbs. We also broadly apply smart technology that helps us economize resources and thus minimize our impact on the environment: for instance, we heavily invested into cloud solutions and use remote working and online communication such as video calls. If business travelling is necessary, we chose travelling by train, limiting flying to a minimum and thus reducing our carbon footprint.