Jean-Pierre De Bandt

Baron Jean-Pierre de Bandt (born Antwerp, 23 January 1934) is a Belgian lawyer and was the President of the Coudenberg group, a Belgian federalist think tank.

From 1951 until 1953, he studied at the Facultés universitaires Notre-Dame de la Paix (FUNDP) after which he graduated as

He started his career in 1961 as a member of the Antwerp Bar (1956) then joined the American law firm Frank Boas Law Office in 1961 in Brussels, to become a partner in 1966.

He was also lecturer at the Hoger Instituut voor Bestuurswetenschappen (University of Antwerp ) (1962 - 1972)

He started his own law firm on July 1, 1969. He was during 20 years Chairman and Managing Partner of what became De Bandt, van Hecke & Lagae. It was the first law firm in Belgium organized along the structure and lines of law partnerships in the United States and Great-Britain. (partnership, full integration of revenues, special status of associates moving to partnership etc.)

The firm merged in 1999 with the Luxemburg firm Loesch & Wolter to become De Bandt, van Hecke, Lagae & Loesch and finally merged in 2002 with the London city firm Linklaters & Paines to become De Bandt & Linklaters. de Bandt became senior counsel of the merged firm.

At the time of the merger with Linklaters, De Bandt van Hecke & Lagae was the largest firm of solicitors ("avocats-advocaten") in Belgium, with more than 200 full time lawyers.

De Bandt was director of several commercial companies and was chairman of the Board of:

He was the founder and chairman of a large civic society "The Coudenberg Group" and the "Interuniversity Center for the study of Federalism" (1984-1998), both centered on the institutional future of Belgium.

He was chairman of two foundations at the University of Namur:

Further he was:

He is a director of the Poelaert Foundation which aims at promoting a full renovation of the Palace of Justice in Brussels, called Poelaert by the name of its architect, which at the time of its inauguration (1886) was considered as the largest building in the world and is one of the architectural masterpieces of the late 19th century.

In addition to many legal articles on business law and constitutional law, he published a series of books:

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