About

After a five year career as an attorney in the Dutch speaking section of the Brussels Bar in Belgium and her education in Belgium, Spain and the US, Florence Jacobs decided to diversify her experience, becoming legal counsel for the European seat of a Japanese multinational, active in the medical devices sector. In 2011, she became legal officer in the legal service at CERN and her function entails the provision of legal advice in matters relating to finance and procurement. She explains, ‘I am in charge of the most complex and interesting commercial agreements my organisation has to enter into in order to fulfil its procurement needs, and be able to execute its scientific mission’. She particularly enjoys conducting complex negotiations with lawyers from different backgrounds often applying her multi-jurisdictional skill. Whether it is in the context of the drafting of a commercial agreement, in an attempt to reach a settlement to avoid arbitration or in order to set up a scientific partnership, she says that those discussions have further developed her legal skills. Some key highlights of Jacobs’ career so far at CERN include the negotiation of a contract for the delivery of electricity to feed all scientific experiments, the biggest procurement contract ever for the Organisation; the setting up of a consortium and governance structure between CERN and academic bodies, for the sponsoring of open access publishing in particle physics; and the negotiation and drafting of a cooperation agreement concerning the contribution of CERN in the launching of a new international organisation with a scientific purpose in the Middle East.