John Koreman

I graduated in law in 1995, cum laude, at Tilburg University, having taken my first year at Erasmus University in Rotterdam. I did the entire degree alongside a full time job in debt counselling, which in hindsight is the most useful combination I could have chosen. I sat across from people who had run out of money, every day. That teaches you more about debt collection than any lecture.

Entrepreneur first, lawyer second

From 1999 I was self employed, as a director and board member. For twenty of those years I was co owner and director of a national Dutch debt collection and bailiff organisation. Thousands of files a week, hundreds of staff, and a daily practice in which I saw which approach works and which merely burns time and money.

I was admitted to the Dutch bar in January 2023. I spent thirty years on the business side of the table. I know what a conflict does to cash flow, to a workforce and to a family. And I know what litigation genuinely costs, not only in money.

What I work on

Debt collection, tenancy law, commercial contract law and corporate law, including shareholder disputes and director liability. Alongside that, attachment and enforcement law, which is involved in almost all of the above.

How I work

I think a genuine connection with my clients matters. You will feel no professional distance with me, and that is not a matter of style but of results. The more you tell me, including the part you would rather not, the better I can help you.

I am persistent and I dislike delay. If nothing is happening in your file, you hear that too. Being left in the dark is what frustrates clients most, and it is entirely avoidable.

And I say so when a case is hopeless. That costs me an instruction and saves you a great deal of money.

Outside the office

I cycle. Seriously, in all weather, and regularly abroad. In 2019 I won the Spartakiada, a race from Athens to Sparta over 248 kilometres. What you need in a long running case is someone who does not drop out at kilometre 180.

Languages

I work in Dutch, English and Greek. Correspondence, meetings and advice in English are entirely normal here. Court documents are necessarily in Dutch, but you never have to write or read them yourself.