Member Spotlight – From rock journalist to intern, Koen De Puydt’s unusual journey into the family business

Koen De Puydt heads the Real Estate law and public law department and is responsible for all real estate/ construction law and intellectual property matters.

Koen De Puydt graduated in 1998 with a degree in Communication Sciences (VUB), while he worked for the independent music magazine RifRaf as a journalist. After his studies, he continued his career as a music journalist with De Standaard and Studio Brussel. At the same time, he obtained his Licentiate Degree in Law, specialising in Public Law at the VUB (2002). In 2009 he obtained a Master of Business Law at the University of Antwerp.

Koen has forged a successful career in real estate and IP law, setting up his new firm in Brussels that has flourished in the past two years. But it is a far cry from his early years when he travelled the world as a music journalist writing about famous rock & hip hop legends.

When Koen was growing up, he spent a lot of time around lawyers, artists and writers – his parents were lawyers, while his father was also a poet – so it’s no surprise that writing and the law should play such a big part in his life.

After studying communications at university, Koen became a rock music journalist, including a spell writing for one of Flanders’ leading newspapers. “I saw all the top rock & hip hop acts, did all the festivals and interviewed all the stars,” he says.

While he enjoyed his job as a music journalist – he was a full-time writer for nine years – the law was always a passion.

“Both my grandfathers were lawyers. My dad was a lawyer. My mother was a judge and my younger sister is a lawyer. It really does run in the family,” he smiles. “In fact, I scared my family when I told them I was going to go to drama school and then become a journalist.”

Eventually, Koen left the music industry and theatrics and took up work as a real estate and IP lawyer. He had his last summer festival season as a rock journalist in 2002 and on September 1st joined a law firm in Brussels as an intern, aged 29. “I went from being a rock journalist one day to an intern the next,” he recalls.

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