Discover Benelux | Discover Flemish Legal Profession | Meet the Winners
Frank Scheerlinck.
The good lawyer TEXT: FRANK VAN LIESHOUT | PHOTOS: PIET VAN EECKHAUT LAWYERS
Continuing the legacy of their famous former mentor and patron, the firm Piet Van Eeckhaut Lawyers run their legal practice with passion, knowledge and a social conscience. Discover Benelux sat down with senior partner Frank Scheerlinck to discuss the meaning of this legacy. In other words, what makes a good defence lawyer? As we speak on the phone, Frank Scheerlinck had just returned from a trip to Cyprus. “Not for holidays,” he hastens to add. “I visited a client there who is waiting for his extradition to Belgium.” As a senior partner of one of Belgium’s most famous law firms, cross-border 92 | Issue 60 | December 2018
cases are part and parcel of his practice, as well as high-profile cases in criminal law and family law, such as murder, manslaughter and domestic violence. Frank himself has pleaded before the Belgian Court of Assizes in more than 20 high-profile cases, he was involved as a defence lawyer in the famous Castle Murder trial and, in 2015, he famously managed to secure three acquittals in a row at the Court of Assizes – a rare feat.
The firm Together with partners Nina Van Eeckhaut and Laurens van Puyenbroeck, Frank runs Piet Van Eeckhaut Lawyers, supported by a staff of seven junior lawyers. Considered the rising young stars of Belgian
law, their firm handles legal cases across a broad range of areas, including criminal, tax, financial and economic criminal law, family law, juvenile law, tenancy law and medical liability cases. Frank mainly deals with high-profile criminal cases as well as criminal tax law such as money laundering. Stepping into her father’s footsteps, Nina focuses on family law and juvenile law as well as criminal law. She pleaded more than 20 cases before the Belgium Court of Assizes, some of them alongside Frank. Laurens specialises in international and medical law. He is also an acclaimed author of a range of publications on human rights and judicial practices, and has recently been appointed special counsel to the Kosovo trials in The Hague.