Filip Dewallens

Filip Dewallens obtained his doctorate in law magna cum laude from the KU Leuven and he obtained his doctorate in law from the University of Antwerp with a thesis on the status of the hospital doctor. As a law student, he was a student representative in the academic council of KU Leuven, member of the Council for International Relations of KU Leuven and vice-chairman of the Circle for International Relations. He established himself as a lawyer and became managing partner of the law firm Dewallens & partners, with offices in Leuven, Brussels and Antwerp. Within the broad domain of health law, he mainly focuses on hospital law and administrative health law. For example, he supervised the merger process of 29 hospitals and he permanently advises boards of directors, management committees, medical boards and hospital doctors. Between 2004 and 2009 he was also a director of Hospital Network Antwerp. Since 2014 he has been a member of the board of directors of KU Leuven. At the international level, Dewallens has worked for the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank (Macedonia 1997 and 2009; Slovenia 2004) and the Council of Europe (Montenegro 2008 and Serbia 2009). He also advised several Belgian ministers of Social Affairs and Health. He was closely involved in the establishment of the Federal Knowledge Center for Healthcare (KFC) and the Fund for Medical Accidents. He teaches health law at the KU Leuven and at the University of Antwerp (Ahlec Chair for Health Law) and he was a guest lecturer at the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia) for the European Institute of Social Security (EISS). Since 1996 he has been chairman of the Flemish Association for Health Law. In 2014, together with Thierry Vansweevelt, he published the monumental standard work Handboek Gezondheidsrecht in two volumes (3430 pages). In 2016, based on a survey by Artsenkrant, he was named the most influential lawyer in Belgian healthcare.