Cathalijne van der Plas appointed to chair in Private International Law
Cathalijne van der Plas will become Professor of Private International Law (0.4 fte) at Leiden University as of 1 October 2021. She succeeds Prof. Sierd Schaafsma who has become a judge at the Supreme Court as of 1 May 2021.
Cathalijne van der Plas obtained her doctorate in 2005 from Radboud University Nijmegen with a thesis entitled 'The judicial function and Private International Law: An exploration of the limits of the judicial function when the Dutch court applies foreign private law and foreign public law '. After her PhD she shifted her field of work to the legal profession. She has been a partner at JahaeRaymakers in Amsterdam since 2020. Her law practice revolves around international litigation and international judgment enforcement. Cross-border issues at the intersection of private and public international law as well as cross-border asset recovery take a prominent place. Based on her expertise, she also regularly acts as an advisor to other lawyers, i.e. as a lawyers' lawyer.
Academically Cathalijne van der Plas has remained active since obtaining her doctorate. From 2007 she combined her work in the legal profession with a part-time appointment at the University of Amsterdam, where she taught in the field of private international law. She also publishes regularly in leading journals in her field, both in the Netherlands and internationally.
Cathalijne van der Plas is regularly invited to participate in expert meetings and to speak at national and international conferences. She is also co-chair of the Asset Recovery Chamber of the Institute for Financial Crime and fellow of the International Academy of Financial Crime Litigators.
From 1 October 2021 Cathalijne van der Plas will work for two days a week at the Civil Law Department of the Institute for Private Law in Leiden. She will be active in undergraduate and graduate education and continue her research within the research program Coherent Private Law.