Professionally servicing our clients is our main concern. Our aim is to understand their needs, provide cost-conscious practical solutions and cultivate long-term relationships. Therefore, our work must be creative, innovative, professional, value adding, to the point and of the highest quality.

Claeys & Engels is active on the regional, national and international markets. Claeys & Engels is a founding and front-running member of Ius Laboris and finds its international dimension within this alliance.

Our people are selected on their ability to deliver excellent client service and clear professional advice, in addition to their technical specialism and language skills.

Claeys & Engels is a collegial and professional partnership where its people from all currently six offices in Belgium together form “One Collaborative Team”, with respect for each other's talents, diversity and complementarity.

Our people are our most important competitive advantage. That is why our People policy is based on the true commitment that our firm must be a stimulating and inclusive growth environment for all our people, where every colleague is encouraged to become the best version of himself/herself, both in the relationship with our clients and with each of our colleagues. Mutual respect and a non-discriminatory behaviour, a positive mindset, an open discussion and feedback culture, and room for innovation and creativity contribute to this. All partners, counsels and managers must therefore demonstrate positive, inspiring, consistent and authentic people leadership, whereby “leading by example” and self-reflection are paramount, and whereby they stimulate and facilitate others in their learning and growth path, and in their ownership, and this with a permanent focus on a positive work energy, attention for the mental and physical well-being, for private life and attention to the challenges of mothers and fathers.

Claeys & Engels therefore sees it as a priority to invest in the daily on-the-job (legal) training and coaching of its people in their journey to excellence, and to invest in knowhow, individual and/or collective development and technology that can contribute to achieve this Shared Vision.

We want to keep our clients abreast of legal developments related to HR and Human Capital. Claeys & Engels is therefore a thought leader and its legal experts regularly speak at seminars (and webinars, podcasts, etc.) and publish both academic and practical views in their practice areas and participate in various events. Claeys & Engels’ legal experts are therefore actively encouraged to contribute to this kind of content marketing and BD activity (including for instance drafting of newsflashes, newsletters, etc.) and to take initiatives in this respect as well, and in line with their own choices and talents.

Furthermore, our legal experts will continuously invest in both their own knowledge and that of our other firm members (for instance by drafting standard documents, active participation in minicells, sharing knowledge, etc.).

As we work for a variety of clients based in Belgium and abroad, our people are multilingual and work on a daily basis in English, Dutch and French. Some of them also work fluently in German or in other languages. We therefore expect our people to have an excellent command of English. In addition to the mother tongue, a good command of the other national language is a prerequisite for working in our firm (for instance for our internal communications, knowledge of legal doctrine and case law in the other national language, etc.). We encourage our people to take the opportunity to strengthen their knowledge of the other (national) language as much as possible (for instance by talking to foreign-language colleagues in their mother tongue, taking part in translation assignments, working in foreign-language files, working temporarily in another office location of our firm, Ius Laboris’ internships and other activities, taking additional language courses at their own initiative, etc.).

Our people will also take up organisational and managerial responsibilities in the firm according to their own role.

Claeys & Engels is well-embedded in the HR community and companies that it serves, and maintains professional relationships with the other actors in its field (employers’ federations and trade unions, authorities, other attorneys and legal experts, universities and their students, and alumni/ae of the firm).

As a major player in the legal profession, Claeys & Engels is aware of the social role it has to play in continuously practising law with integrity and therefore expects the same level of integrity from its suppliers and in its cooperation with other third parties. Furthermore, our firm contributed to social fund-raising initiatives and we have the ambition to do this support structurally in the future to contribute to a better society. Last but not least, Claeys & Engels will also encourage its team members to pay attention to the current and upcoming environmental challenges and sustainability, both within and outside the firm.