Ella Adriaanse

Background

Ella Adriaanse was born in 1961 in Middelburg, the capital of the province of Zeeland in the southwest of the Netherlands. She came from a family of lawyers. Her father, F. K. Adriaanse, was an advocate who also served as concertmaster of the Zeeuws Orkest, and his father and grandfather had both practised law.

Middelburg's gymnasium traced its origins to a Latin school first recorded in 1365, which placed her early education within one of the oldest classical school traditions in Zeeland.

Education

She attended the gymnasium stream of the Stedelijke Scholengemeenschap Middelburg, a municipal secondary school. That institution was formed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the municipal gymnasium and other secondary schools in Middelburg were combined into a single comprehensive school under the Mammoetwet reform.

She first chose to study English at Leiden and, after about eighteen months, switched to law in the same city. Leiden had been established as a university in 1575 and was then the state university of the town, the Rijksuniversiteit Leiden. She studied Dutch law there and completed her studies in 1985.

In 1986 she was sworn in as an advocate in Amsterdam, which allowed her to practise as a lawyer in the Netherlands.

Career

Ella Adriaanse joined the Amsterdam firm Stibbe, Blaisse & De Jong in 1986 and became a partner in 1993. The firm had been started in Amsterdam in 1911, and in 1991 it merged with Simont & Simont in Brussels to form Stibbe & Simont, one of the most prominent law firms in the Benelux. After a further merger in 1993 it was renamed Stibbe Simont Monahan Duhot, and it later became known simply as Stibbe. Her work at the firm covered corporate and sports law, and during the 1990s she became known as the lawyer of several well-known Dutch footballers, including Ruud Gullit, Marco van Basten and Frank Rijkaard, who were then playing for AC Milan.

In 2002 it was reported that she was leaving Stibbe to form a boutique practice, and her time at the firm ended in 2003. That year she co-founded a new law practice in Amsterdam. In 2012 she made her practice independent under the name Ella Adriaanse Advocatuur, which focuses on employment law, civil procedure and corporate law and advises small and medium-sized businesses and private clients.

The firm describes her approach as pragmatic and client-centred, aimed at practical solutions, and states that she has for many years acted as the regular legal adviser of several Dutch companies.

Membership

Ella Adriaanse is registered as an advocate with the Nederlandse Orde van Advocaten, the professional association of Dutch advocates, which oversees the admission and professional conduct of lawyers in the Netherlands. She joined this body when she was sworn in as an advocate in Amsterdam in 1986.

Her memberships also include sport-related bodies. She served for many years as chair of the arbitration committee of the KNVB, the Royal Netherlands Football Association, the national governing body of football in the Netherlands. She is a member of the committee that assesses doping cases, and she chairs the jury of the Giltay Veth thesis prize awarded by the Vereniging voor Sport en Recht, an association concerned with the relationship between sport and law.

• Advocate admitted in the Amsterdam district

  Nederlandse Orde van Advocaten , Netherlands

  1986 - present

• Chair for many years

  Arbitragecommissie van de KNVB , Netherlands

• Member

  Beoordelingscommissie Dopingzaken , Netherlands

• Chair of the jury for the Prof Mr N.P.J. Giltay Veth thesis prize

  Vereniging voor Sport en Recht , Netherlands

Connections

Father:

F. K. Adriaanse

Advocate who also served as concertmaster of the Zeeuws Orkest

References

• Encyclopedie van Zeeland Regional encyclopedia entry on Ella C. B. Adriaanse covering her birth in Middelburg in 1961, her schooling in Middelburg, her studies in Leiden and her swearing-in as an advocate in 1986.
  2022
• Juristi.nl Directory page for Ella Adriaanse Advocatuur describing the history of the practice, including her start at Stibbe in 1986, her partnership from 1993 and the establishment of the firm in 2012.
• Law.com International Edition Report on the planned departure of Ella Adriaanse, a corporate and sports law partner at Stibbe, to form a boutique practice.
  2002
• Nederlandse Orde van Advocaten register Official bar register entry for mr. E.C.B. Adriaanse in Amsterdam, recording her swearing-in on 8 April 1986 and employment law as her practice area.
• Ella Adriaanse Advocatuur The firm's biography page for Ella Adriaanse, covering her education, her career at Stibbe and the later development of her practice.