Field Fisher Waterhouse has strengthened its Brussels office with the hire of a two-lawyer intellectual property (IP) team from Allen & Overy (A&O).

Stijn Debaene, who was a senior associate in A&O's Brussels office, joined Field Fisher as a partner earlier this month (9 September) and will head the IP practice locally. He is the office's first dedicated IP partner and will be joined by one associate next month.

Debaene's practice covers both contentious and non-contentious IP, with a particular focus on the pharmaceutical sector. He has experience advising on M&A, research and development and joint venture agreements.

Commenting on the hires, Brussels managing partner Eric Cusas said: "The appointments allow us to further develop Field Fisher's IP capability in Brussels, offering IP advice to Belgian clients as well as strengthening the firm's cross-jurisdictional European IP capability."

The hires take Field Fisher's European IP practice to around 35 lawyers, of which 22 are partners. The Brussels office will have 12 partners and 25 fee earners, having grown rapidly from three partners when it was founded in April 2007.

Field Fisher, which has made redundancies in the UK, said its Brussels office had been less affected by the downturn and played a significant role in helping it grow firm-wide turnover by 8%.