He went to school in the Sint-Barbaracollege in Ghent (Rhetorica 1947). He studied law at the University of Ghent and further in Paris and London, and wrote his habilitating thesis on the burden of proof (De bewijslast in het Belgisch privaatrecht, 1961).
He was a member of the Belgian Senate for the CVP[2] (co-opted) from 1977 to 1981. He is a former president and member of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts, former president of the Vlaamse Juristenvereniging (Flemish Association of Lawyers) (1983–1996), president of the International Association of Procedural Law and of the Interuniversity Centre for procedural law, Chairman of the Commission for the Approximation of Procedural Law in Europe, dr. jur. h. c. Lublin University and honorary professor Beijing University.
He was married on 11 July 1956 to Godelieve de Schryver, daughter of Minister of State August de Schryver and had two sons (Matthias Storme and Pieter Storme, who died young).