Business law firm sees new players enter the market offering legal advice
Today Lydian, one of the most prominent Belgian business law firms, celebrates its tenth anniversary. Lately the firm has seen new players enter the market offering legal advice. “The Big Four, legal interim offices: nowadays everyone offers their services in legal advice,” explains managing partner Jan Hofkens. “However our business model, based on the one hand on tailor-made niches and daily client support on the other, continues to bear fruit.”
Lydian was founded in 2001 as an independent, Belgian business law firm. Since then it has grown into a full-service firm with more than 60 lawyers, top lawyers in all major disciplines and informal networks all over the world. “We have been on the right track since the very beginning”, reveals managing partner Jan Hofkens. “We are growing year on year despite a financial crisis and an increasingly competitive market”.
Meanwhile Lydian sees new players enter the market offering legal advice such as ‘The Big Four’, social secretariats and legal interim offices. “Nevertheless our repeated experience is that our strategy, based on two pillars, pays off.”
On the one hand the firm meets the demands of specific sectors: these often include complex cases that require an integrated approach from specialist lawyers. Jan Hofkens: “Apart from considerable expertise and experience our specialist lawyers are able to provide a tailor-made service to, for example, the insurance sector, but also to the pensions and financial institutions sector, the energy sector and to the activities of real estate investors, etc.”
On the other hand the firm succeeds in providing extensive services requested by its clients to support their day-to-day activities. In addition to responding to issues facing its clients this may also involve setting up helpdesks and dispatching experienced lawyers to work on temporary assignments at its clients’ premises.
“This approach is based on market demand as revealed by qualitative research carried out among our clients”, confirms Jan Hofkens. “It goes without saying that this goes hand in hand with flexible rates and innovative cost structures.”
