Catelijne Boshouwers has been a lawyer-mediator since 2007 and is a zealous specialist in the field of family law. In addition to assisting clients in 'regular' family law cases, she regularly represents (previous) expats in a wide range of international disputes, such as international divorces, parental authority issues and cross-border alimony cases. Catelijne regularly conducts procedures under the 1980 The Hague Child Abduction Convention and represented clients in a number of high-profile court cases such as http://The Hague Court of Appeal ECLI:NL: GHDHA:2015:2288  and http://The Hague Court of Appeal ECLI:NL:GHDHA:2019:2286. She lived as an expat in Cambodia for a number of years working for the UN human Rights Office (UNHCHR). This added some valuable experience tohet legal practice.

With a view to the children's best interests, Catelijne will first try to reach collaborative solutions, through mediation or a 4-way meeting (with both clients and their lawyers). But where needed, she will use her extensive litigation experience to reach the best for her clients in court.

Catelijne is not just a seasoned legal practitioner; she also has a background in mental health care, which makes her an especially skilled mediator. Her experience with conversational techniques and the interventions required in specific situations are clearly reflected in her mediations, as well as her sense of compassion for clients at a critical stage of their lives. Parties usually feel positive about the future on completion of the mediation process.

Catelijne passed the super specialization course of the Dutch Association of Family Lawyers and Divorce Mediators (vFAS) with great pleasure, and makes sure she regularly participates in continuous learning programs on family law and mediation. Catelijne is also a board member of the Association of International Child Abduction Lawyers (https://diallawyers.org/nl/ ) and the chairperson for the Southeast Asia focus group of L4L, the Lawyers for Lawyers Foundation.

What clients say about Catelijne Boshouwers

Monique Schellekens has been acting as a lawyer since 2002. She specializes in family law and has been involved for 20 years in divorce, termination of cohabitation, parenthood and custody, property divisions, settlement of prenuptial agreements, child and partner alimony, and related family law issues.

Monique likes to guide people in separating in a good and respectful way. She prefers to fulfill the role of mediator or consultation (collaborative) lawyer. She helps to find creative possibilities so that a satisfactory arrangement can be reached for and by clients. Because of her broad experience with people in conflict with each other or themselves, and because of her empathetic, calm and non-judgmental attitude, Monique creates the safe space for clients to find solutions together for the future. In this way breaking up can be seen as a new beginning. Many of her clients achieve sustainable solutions.

Monique is a member of the Association of Family Lawyers and Divorce Mediators (vFAS) and of the Association of Collaborative Professionals (VvCP). She is also a registered mediator with the Mediators Federation of the Netherlands (MfN) and a member of the Association for Family and Juvenile Law (FJR). In addition, Monique is trained as an NLP Master Practitioner at NTI NLP and as a Coach (accredited at practitioner level by EMCC/EQA) at Nonons. Her coaching and training is insightful and practical at the same time, from awareness to actually taking actions to achieve the desired goal.

Monique has been appointed by the Bar Association as Intervision Discussion Leader and in that capacity supervises intervision groups of lawyers. This concerns issues, dilemmas or problems that lawyers encounter in their work. The guiding principle in these intervisions is what works best for 'the person behind the lawyer', what he/she can use in his/her work.

Monique has registered the following main (and sub) areas of law in the register of legal areas of the Netherlands Bar Association (NOVA): Family Law, Collaborative Divorce, Divorce, International Private Law, Mediation. On the basis of this registration, she is obliged to obtain ten training points each calendar year in each registered main jurisdiction in accordance with the standards of the NOVA. In addition, mandatory legal points Family Law, Skills and Intervision apply to the vFAS and VvCP. Monique meets all these obligations every year.

Where necessary, Monique works together with other professionals such as tax advisers, civil-law notaries, financial planners, child/adolescent coaches, psychologists, pedagogues and relationship therapists, from a network that she has built up over the years.

What clients say about Monique Schellekens

Agnes Spoormans started working as a family lawyer in 2003. Her first years were spent in The Hague, where her activities included successfully pleading various cassation cases in Supreme Court. She then joined a renowned corporate-law firm in Amsterdam as a family-law expert, focusing on the financially more intricate divorces of entrepreneurs, CEO-stockholders (DGAs), expats and self-employed professionals such as medical specialists, consultants or accountants. She very much enjoyed successfully completing various specialization courses in family law and mediation. As a divorce mediator, Agnes is a member of the Association of Family Lawyers and Divorce Mediators (vFAS) and registered with the Dutch Mediators' Federation (MfN). She also acts as a Collaborative Divorce Lawyer and is a member of the Association of Collaborative Professionals.

Agnes is keen to apply her extensive knowledge and experience within BSS to achieve sustainable solutions for her clients. While she has solid court experience, she prefers her clients to solve their cases in joint consultation. Being a child of divorced parents herself, as well as a mother of four, Agnes is firmly convinced of the need to keep communicating. Based on her specific field of expertise, Agnes provides her clients with a clear outline of the relevant legal frameworks and insights, enabling them to work towards a solution themselves. With her people skills, analytical insight and sensitivity to emotions, Agnes monitors and facilitates this process so that a full, mutually satisfactory solution can be achieved within a reasonable timeframe.  She does not only handle cases where parties are terminating their partnership or marriage, but also helps draw up or modify agreements that mark the start of a new phase in a relationship, such as cohabitation contracts, pre- or post-nuptial agreements (marriage contracts) and any other family law arrangements.

What clients say about Agnes Spoormans

Marloes Holthuis is an attorney specialized in family law and a divorce mediator. Because of her affinity with numbers, she works a lot with entrepreneurs. Given her economic background and years of work experience, she is good at analysing financial statements and prenuptial agreements, which is important for the determination of alimony and division of assets amongst the (former) spouses.

Marloes is flexible, down to earth and thorough. Clients experience working with her as pragmatic and pleasant. She sets – feasible - goals in close consultation with her clients and makes every effort in achieving these. Apart from a legal mind, this requires creativity and professionalism. In closing deals she not only looks at the current situation but also at future circumstances insofar these are reasonably foreseeable, while striking a fair balance between the interests of both parties, always keeping in mind the interests of any children involved, which she deems of paramount importance.

In Marloes’ experience every divorce is unique and requires a specific approach. One of these approaches are done in close consultation with the other ’spouse’s lawyer (i.e. the ‘classic way’). Alternatively divorce settlements are achieved in amicable consultation with both parties (called ‘mediation’) or with the assistance of a multidisciplinary team guided by several (legal, financial and/or tax) experts (the ‘collaborative divorce’). Finally, initiating legal proceedings is sometimes necessary; also in this field Marloes is seen as a seasoned and successful litigator

Marloes is a lawyer since 2008. She worked for more than 10 years at a tier-1 renowned family law firm in Amsterdam. Before that, she worked for more than three years at an office in Rotterdam. On an international level, Marloes passed her exchange at Inseec Grande école de Commerce in Paris and at the University of North Carolina, Law school. As a lawyer and mediator, Marloes is a member of the Association for Family Lawyers and Divorce Mediators (vFAS) and the Association of Collaborative Professionals (VVCP).

Marloes registered the following main (and sub) areas of law in the Register of Jurisdictions of the Dutch Bar Association: Family law, collaborative divorce, divorce, maintenance cases, access arrangements, private international law, mediation, parenthood and recognition. Pursuant to this registration, she is required to obtain ten training points in each registered main area of law each calendar year according to the standards of the Dutch Bar Association.

Marloes lives with her husband and three children in Amsterdam.