Prepare for the future
With 25 years of existence, the IBJ-IJE has reached a new milestone. The Council’s ambition is now to consolidate the past achievements and prepare the IBJ-IJE and its members for the future.
The first focus will be to prepare the future of our members’ daily practice and to make company lawyers future-proof.
AI is disrupting our profession. We therefore need to integrate its operational and legal aspects in the working of our intellectually independent profession. The Council will actively support this (r)evolution, through a specific working group and projects related to training, guidance and tools.
Training is essential to be future proof. This Council will pursue the Institute’s excellence in members training in constant dialogue with stakeholders. Potential developments are in the labelling & designing of our training offer, peer to peer exchange (tools), & giving the floor to company lawyers to share their real-life experience.
This Council has the intention to lay the foundation for an initial training programme for new company lawyers.
The entry point for this is our code of ethics, redesigned in 2025. The ambition is to introduce self-learning for new members, promote the code to a next level, and develop practical guidance around it, benefiting the company lawyers and companies.
As a credible institution, the IBJ-IJE acknowledges the role it could play as a sounding board on new legislation and societal developments, for the effectiveness of the rule of law. This Council will continue to intervene on proposals influencing directly the company lawyer’s profession and confidentiality, and develop a methodology to take positions on legal proposals and other key issues impacting the work of company lawyers and/or the Institute’s (legal) values.
In its broader societal role, the IBJ-IJE is also committed to fundamental values such as diversity, inclusion, and sustainability, as part of the role of company lawyers in society.
A third focus is preparing our regulated legal status for the future. While underlining our “legal insight, inside” DNA, we will prepare the development of our status in line with today’s realities. This includes advocating to remove outdated admission criteria such as the employment contract and exploring the expansion of associated members in an inclusive way.
The future starts now. While continuing to deliver high-quality services to our members, this Council is committed to designing the best path forward—ensuring company lawyers remain essential and future-proof in a changing world.