De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek managing partner Jaap de Keijzer heads the Netherlands’ bluest of blue-blood firms. This year he took one of the most radical decisions in its history when he sanctioned the closure of two offices and the consolidation of the firm’s resources exclusively in Amsterdam.

The closure of The Hague and Rotterdam, due to be completed by 2008, not only sent shockwaves through the Dutch legal market, it reverberated around the world. There was a certain irony that De Brauw had elected to slim down to concentrate resources on the corporate and financial heartland of Amsterdam when that was perceived as one of the biggest barriers to its proposed merger with Linklaters when it was a member of the alliance.

To take such a bold decision demands guts, and De Keijzer clearly has them in spades.