A Flying Dutchman as a Flexible Lawyer
Legal Counsel Services was founded in 2001 by Bram (Abraham) van Heel. As a lawyer working in the dynamic IT industry he saw the need for flexible interim legal services within IT and other companies.
Van Heel has a truly international background. Born in Buenos Aires (1963) of Dutch parents, he was educated at Universities in the USA and in The Netherlands. Our chief lawyer is a graduate of both Loyola University in New Orleans, Louisiana (B.A. Political Sciences, 1985) and of Leiden University (M.A. Law in 1989 and M.A. Political Sciences in 1993). He speaks Dutch, English, German, Spanish, French and some Italian.
During his studies he did internships at the United Nations in New York and at a law firm in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He fulfilled his military service as an officer in the Royal Dutch Air Force.
Professionally Van Heel has worked in a great variety of environments in the public and private sector. He started out as a clerk at the Arnhem District Court in The Netherlands. Soon he moved on to work as an attorney for the Rotterdam office of Loeff Claeys Verbeke, a prestigious European law firm. There he specialized in areas such as maritime law, labor law and insolvency law for nearly five years. He both litigated and advised.
As a corporate lawyer Van Heel worked for Unisource, a joint venture of five European telecom operators (KPN, Telia, Swisscom, Telefonica). He was based in Brussels, where he lobbied and monitored regulators in matters important to the company, including the approval of the Unisource joint venture by the European Commission (DG IV).
From telecom he moved to the IT industry, as an in-house Senior Legal Counsel for Atos Origin. Here he dealt with a wide variety of contracts related to IT, telecom, outsourcing, public procurement, labor and insolvency. In addition to contractual work, he launched and rolled out a legal awareness program, set up a legal information website and implemented standard contracts and procedures for work. He coordinated part of the international in-house and outside legal counsel.
After three years at the IT firm Atos Origin, Van Heel had become more and more aware of the need for interim legal staffers. So in 2001 he decided to set up on his own and Legal Counsel Services was born.
By its nature Legal Counsel Services wants to stay a small and flexible firm, with minimal overhead costs. Based on the type of project we will work alone, or form a task force with other independent interim lawyers or even experts from other fields. We aim to provide the best temporary legal services for a reasonable fee.
Being in the forefront of the growing trend of flexible legal services Bram van Heel founded and was elected chairman of the Dutch Association of Legal Interim Professionals.
In 2018 the founder and director of Legal Counsel Services, Bram van Heel, was admitted to the Rotterdam Bar. More information about his practice can be found here.