While Ireland’s competitive legal market has enjoyed a buoyant period post-Covid, fresh challenges have emerged to challenge this optimism. Ireland has not been insulated from the overheated recruitment market and is as alive as global peers to reversals wrought by the cost-of-living crisis, the war in Ukraine and a slowing of deals as concerns over interest rates and inflation continue to gather pace.
However, Declan Black, Mason Hayes & Curran’s managing partner, predicts high single-digit revenue growth for the 2022 calendar year, even as it comes on the back of a 2021 banner year for much of the Irish market at large. ‘Corporate transactions are down from the 2021 peak and that has spread through the western world,’ he says. ‘Valuations have tumbled amid concerns over interest rates and inflation. Deals have slowed down.’ That said, he points to real estate, financial services, contentious, regulatory and data regulatory as areas of sustained growth.
Geoff Moore, managing partner of Arthur Cox, is sanguine. He flags good levels of activity in corporate, with the finance group being kept busy with new mandates in real estate finance, private equity, corporate banking and infrastructure finance. The litigation group has also had a good run, with regulatory investigations and dispute resolution work being a large driver of activity.
‘Corporate transactions are down from the 2021 peak and that has spread through the western world.’
Declan Blank, Hayes & Curran
He insists there is no shortage of opportunity. ‘ESG has been a key area for us as businesses, particularly listed companies, continue to focus on this. We are working with our clients to help them identify and integrate ESG priorities at all levels of their businesses and our cross-disciplinary team has been busy with increased client demand in the areas of green financings, bonds, fund disclosures as well as energy conscious M&A and financial regulation.’
He reels off a list of substantive mandates for Arthur Cox that includes advising Greenlink on its 500MW, 190km interconnector project and acting for ESB and Bord na Móna on the development and financing of the 83MW second phase of the Oweninny windfarm, Ireland’s largest wind development project. Other standout matters include advising Brookfield Asset Management on its acquisition of the entire issued share capital of Hibernia REIT for €1.089bn and Starwood Capital Group on its debt finance provision for Echelon Data Centres, an Irish-owned company.
Stephen Keogh, William Fry’s head of corporate, points to advising Echelon on the €950m Starwood Capital financing; online food ordering service and Irish unicorn Flipdish on its series B and series C fundraising rounds; as well as deals for Melior, the spin-off private equity fund managed by the former Carlyle team in Ireland. Keogh says the first half of 2022 tracked that of 2021’s stellar run but he has also noticed a slowdown. ‘We would like to see more term sheets,’ he admits. ‘We are not yet seeing the same volume of new instructions to see us through to next year, but we can’t expect to be flat out forever.’
Owen O’Sullivan, William Fry’s managing partner, is similarly philosophical. ‘We can’t ignore the headwinds but we’re not panicking. The firm works to the calendar year and we have built in provisions around things slowing down and factored in inflation pressures.’
For his part, Matheson managing partner Michael Jackson’s highlights include advising Generation Investment Management (the investment management firm of Al Gore) on establishing the fourth vintage of its flagship private equity fund range; advising Bank of Ireland on its acquisition of the Irish assets of the Belgian bank, KBC, which is leaving the Irish market; and advising Octopus Renewables on the acquisition, development and project financing of a 250MW solar plant, which will be the largest in Ireland.
‘We can’t ignore the headwinds but we’re not panicking. We have built in provisions around things slowing down and factored in inflation pressures.’
William Fry, Owen O’Sullivan
With competition being so fierce, it doesn’t do for firms to hide their light under a bushel. As Black says: ‘Economic headwinds are obviously horrible but the business of law is very resilient. Brexit has been the gift that keeps on giving. There is an extraordinary centre of gravity in the Irish market which means that, because of its smaller size, it doesn’t take all that much to create a positive impact.
‘We now have 2.5 million people in employment, many in high-value jobs in tech, financial services and pharma, and that is driving a lot of activity. There are many problems in Ireland, but they are problems of growth rather than problems of contraction. There is a good set of indigenous companies. From a legal services point of view, that means just a lot of activity.’
Speaking with Legal Business at the end of 2022, Jackson noted the full effects of the slowdown were still to play out. ‘Earlier [in 2022] when things looked like being a little less busy than in 2021, I wondered whether we were just seeing a return to the pre-Covid “normal” where some practice areas were a little seasonal.’ He also predicted any downturn would not be felt until this year.
The message from Dublin’s law firm leaders is for the most part ‘prepare for the worst and hope for the best’. Black concludes: ‘I’m not expecting anything radical or a step change over the next few months but the macroeconomic environment makes me nervous. An energy shock and the cost-of-living crisis will feed into harder times for business. Ireland is resilient and performing very well. It will be squeezed but hopefully it will fit through the gap without too much damage. Ireland will suffer in a global downturn but it will bounce back quickly. That is a factor of our size.’ LB
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| Rank (by Legal 500 ranking) | Firm name | Region | Total lawyers | Total partners | Promotions | Offices | Partner hires |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 | William Fry | Ireland | 208 | 73 | 2 | 5 | 1 |
| 22 | McCann FitzGerald | Ireland | 366 | 84 | 4 | 4 | 10 |
| 23 | Matheson | Ireland | 325 | 118 | 14 | 6 | 3 |
| 25 | A&L Goodbody | Ireland | 398 | 115 | 9 | 6 | 2 |
| 30 | Arthur Cox | Ireland | 371 | 101 | 2 | 5 | 7 |
| 35 | Mason Hayes & Curran | Ireland | 289 | 106 | 15 | 4 | 4 |
| 65 | Dillon Eustace | Ireland | 82 | 40 | 3 | 4 | 1 |
| 77 | ByrneWallace | Ireland | 150 | 52 | 5 | 2 | 1 |