Ireland is breathing a little easier again. With more than five years of economic turbulence battering both businesses and reputations, the nation has finally managed to hoist itself out of recession. Having officially exited its €67.5bn bailout programme in December 2013 – a move described by finance minister Michael Noonan as Ireland being ‘handed back her purse’ – this summer also saw the Central Statistics Office announce economic growth of 2.7% for the first quarter of 2014.
While the situation is still deemed perilous in many parts, with a mammoth public deficit, a woeful property market and high unemployment, a sense of confidence is returning to Ireland’s legal elite. And such is the battle-hardened resilience of the young lawyers that made partner around the time the economy crumbled – including those at Arthur Cox, McCann FitzGerald, A&L Goodbody, William Fry, Matheson and others – that a crop of up-and-coming individuals are emerging as the next generation of stars to define Ireland’s legal market in the years ahead.
Legal Business canvassed a wide range of market participants in a bid to identify those individuals set to make an impact in the coming decade, focusing specifically on partners made up between 2008 and 2013. Senior management at a number of Irish law firms were asked to nominate up-and-coming partners at rival firms while we also sought the opinion of the Magic Circle, other UK firms and legal recruiters for their views on key players in the Irish market.
The results illustrate two clear trends in this resourceful but often volatile market: that the demand for corporate, tax and finance lawyers is stronger than ever, and that competition is fierce among the crop of talent that endured one of the most intense periods of economic turbulence in history as they took their first steps as partners.
Most bankable stars
With Ireland having maintained its reputation as an attractive venue for overseas investment, particularly in the area of financial services, it is unsurprising that an abundance of work in this sector saw many names recommended.
Among that talent is a pool of standout lawyers within Arthur Cox’s first-tier banking and finance team, including Clifford Chance-trained Robert Cain (see profile). Peers say that Cain, who advised the UK government and Northern Rock on the latter’s restructuring and transfer of its banking business in Ireland to Irish Life and Permanent for €650m in 2011, is regarded as a ‘natural leader’.
Others to watch include investment funds partner Dara Harrington. Made up in 2011, Harrington has previously been praised for his ‘energy and perceptive, commercial advice’ and got a taste of life in-house via a role within the risk management group of Macquarie Bank in Australia.
Arthur Cox managing partner Brian O’Gorman believes that building those leadership skills involves handing over responsibility at an early stage: ‘When you look at all the senior associates, you try to pick leaders out of a bunch. Those that accelerate will be able to tackle big and complex deals and develop teams around them, and take over client relationships without needing much help from senior partners. As a general principle, we probably give more autonomy to our associates at that stage in their career than other firms so we probably let people develop at a faster pace.’
Young star: Robert Cain, Arthur Cox
2000 Trainee, Clifford Chance
2002 Associate, Clifford Chance
2005 Secondment to the Financial Services Authority
2006 Senior associate, Clifford Chance
2008 Senior associate, Arthur Cox
2010 Partner, Arthur Cox
Robert Cain believes that being multifaceted and flexible are prerequisites to surviving the often intense practice of banking law. He should know: Cain is part of a team that advised the Irish government throughout the financial crisis, including the guarantee of bank liabilities and the Troika intervention, the terms of which required Ireland to sell off €3bn of its assets.
‘There were some pretty serious moments in 2008 when the crisis erupted,’ he recalls. ‘We took a step into the unknown. Those moments you remember. We were doing groundbreaking work that no other firm in Europe had really done at the time. It was thrilling and challenging.’
Cain says that an understanding of the underlying political and regulatory policy objectives, whether they be EU or domestic, are crucial in giving clients a commercial steer. He has always been a finance lawyer at heart and moving to the leading Irish firm from Clifford Chance (CC), where he was an associate in its financial regulatory team, was apparently an easy decision.
‘I chose financial regulatory because it was a seat I enjoyed the most when I was training at CC. I’ve never left finance. The atmosphere at Arthur Cox is supportive and entrepreneurial and finance is a fascinating area that’s constantly developing. There is a fusion of law and policy and I would encourage any young lawyer to do it.’
At offshore leader Walkers, a duo of partners were noted as helping build a credible presence for the firm after its launch four years ago in Dublin. Noeleen Ruddy and Gayle Bowen have emerged as standout names in the firm’s highly ranked capital markets team and investment funds team respectively. Elevated from counsel to partner in 2012, Ruddy has been described as ‘dedicated, hardworking and a great mentor to junior associates’, and was one of the first people through the door of the firm’s Dublin arm alongside managing partner Garry Ferguson.
‘Her experience on building infrastructure (as in recruitment policies and procedures, precedents and so on) from inception to what is now a market-leading team is unique in Dublin at her level,’ says Ferguson.
‘No-one else in Dublin at her level has her experience in catastrophe bonds,’ he adds. ‘We established the group in September 2011 and the firm now takes the lion’s share of those deals.’
Ferguson, who joined from leading Irish law firm Matheson (then Matheson Ormsby Prentice) and now heads Walkers’ global structured products and capital markets group, feels the firm’s presence in Ireland has come a long way, up to 41 fee-earners now and, having just signed a lease for a third floor in its offices at The Anchorage at Sir John Rogerson’s Quay, is budgeting for 55 fee-earners by the end of the financial year.
‘The enormity of the challenge and the work involved in building an office from scratch didn’t fully occur to us,’ reflects Ferguson. ‘It was time well spent. We have a good infrastructure now and a thriving office of bright and driven lawyers. But at the time, the joke around town about us was that we had two fee-earners and two floors – so one floor per fee-earner!’
Ruddy isn’t the only cited partner to enhance the firm’s finance offering; fellow capital markets partner and former William Fry lawyer Bowen set up the firm’s investment funds practice with current head Paul Farrell and is noted as the ‘go-to person’ on the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive. Freshly made up to partner in July, Bowen also created the firm’s summer internship programme.
Having joined from Dillon Eustace in 2011, Walkers finance partner Andrew Traynor is also viewed as a major player within the capital markets practice and is cited as ‘the most important hire the team has made’. Having been ‘instrumental’ in establishing Walkers Ireland in the Chinese and Russian markets, key mandates included acting as lead counsel on the first Chinese-qualified foreign institutional investor to be structured through an Irish special purpose vehicle and listed in the Irish Stock Exchange – a landmark $10bn platform for investing in Chinese-listed securities for one of the largest Chinese managers.
Other younger partners to win plaudits from peers within the sector include McCann FitzGerald’s banking partners Joshua Hogan and Philip Murphy. Made up only last year, Hogan is described as a ‘real star in the making’ by McCann chairman John Cronin. Specialising in structured finance and insolvency-related work, Hogan helped shape the legislation for Ireland’s new Personal Insolvency Act 2012, which coincided with the Department of Finance and the Department of Justice initiative to develop a blueprint for personal insolvency to reflect the problems Ireland has faced in recent years.
Murphy (see profile), is cited as ‘very strong indeed’ in structured finance, acquisition finance and restructuring work. Considered a ‘super lawyer with a strong client following from banks and new lenders in the Irish markets’, Murphy helped successfully conclude a €55.5m five-year financing facilities agreement with the shipping and ports services business Doyle Group. The refinancing will see Allied Irish Bank support Doyle Group’s shipping-related activities and growth over a five-year period until 2018. Promoted in 2008, Adrian Farrell is also praised by the wider market and specialises in debt capital markets and structured finance.
At Eversheds, one finance partner whose name came up frequently was former William Fry associate Darragh Blake, who was made partner in 2013. Listed in The Legal 500 in the firm’s second tier banking and finance team, major work for Blake included advising on the takeover by Endo Health Solutions of Paladin Labs Europe for $1.7bn last November, while other clients included Bank of Scotland, HSBC and Ireland’s National Asset Management Agency.
‘We introduce our lawyers to clients at a very early stage for the benefit of the client,’ says Alan Murphy, managing partner of Eversheds Dublin office and chairman of Eversheds International. ‘At Eversheds, partners and fee-earners get exposure to clients much earlier than other businesses. You have to work hard and show you’re interested in building relationships with your colleagues in the business. But markets have become more sophisticated. That is the key difference now to when I first became a partner.’
As befits one of Dublin’s most celebrated finance practices, the team at A&L Goodbody has several standout individuals. Made up to partner as recently as June, debt capital markets lawyer Jack Sheehy has been noted by one Magic Circle firm as a major player to watch and has advised high-profile clients such as The Royal Bank of Scotland on the securitisation of Ulster Bank’s commercial loan portfolio. Also making a name for herself in the market is the ‘top-class’ Marie O’Brien, who was hired from Matheson and joined as a partner in February 2013. Specialising in aircraft finance, O’Brien is recognised as a leading aviation lawyer and also heads up A&L Goodbody’s much-admired Chinese lawyer exchange programme.
Just promoted as a partner in September 2013, Mason Hayes & Curran financial services lawyer and London head, Micheál Grace, is considered a star player in his field, who has taken significant responsibility early on as a partner. Based in the City, Grace is also recommended in The Legal 500 and major pieces of work include advising Bank of Ireland on the financing of London & Regional Properties’ acquisition of the Eircom Network Management Centre at Citywest.
Young star: Philip Murphy, McCann FitzGerald
2001 Trainee, McCann FitzGerald
2004 Solicitor, McCann FitzGerald
2004 Secondment to Bank of Ireland, corporate banking
2005 Associate, McCann FitzGerald
2012 Partner, McCann FitzGerald
Qualified in 2004, Philip Murphy’s interest in transactional work stems from his days as a 20-year-old law student, where he undertook a year-long exchange programme at the Department of Consumer Services in Chicago. Part of his job involved prosecuting taxi drivers whose cars were in a poor state of repair.
‘I had to go and meet with the driver and try to hammer out a settlement arrangement,’ he recalls. ‘If I couldn’t, I had to stand in front of a judge and prosecute them – it was terrifying. But the state would tell you it’s costly to prosecute these cases, so you had to learn to negotiate and settle.’
Having delved into acquisition, property and structured finance, and finally promoted to partner at McCann FitzGerald in 2012, Murphy particularly enjoys the process behind closing deals. ‘You need the right mindset and management; your client wants the deal done, so your focus has to be understanding the entirety of the transaction. You also need to be able to manage people, timelines and egos.’
Recently, Murphy was part of a McCann team advising a syndicate of banks, including Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (in special liquidation), Allied Irish Bank and Ulster Bank Ireland, on the restructuring of facilities provided to the Jurys Inn Hotel Group.
In the funds arena, Matheson partners Dualta Counihan and Aiden Kelly are also recommended. Counihan has further been noted as ‘central to the continuing growth’ of the firm’s market-leading funds practice, according to managing partner Liam Quirke, and as an ‘excellent technical lawyer’, he ‘actively works to change the shape of the law to benefit his clients and the industry’. Kelly’s experience includes a secondment to the London legal department of a global investment bank before taking up residence in Matheson’s New York branch.
Of his team, Quirke says: ‘As a firm, we fundamentally believe that talented people with relevant expertise are the surest route to competitive advantage. In that sense, “star players” are absolutely essential. You cannot be the best law firm in the market without the best people in the market. A culture of excellence entails the sharing of knowledge and expertise. Knowledge and expertise shared is knowledge and expertise multiplied. Star players, in that sense, are a reflection of the firm as a whole.’
William Fry’s incoming managing partner and head of corporate, Bryan Bourke, comments: ‘It’s very important to have excellent people because they set an example, so long as the stars are team players as well. And although we have plenty of grey hairs too – our partnership has a young and diverse profile.’
‘We can’t go mad again’: Ireland’s fragile economic revival
Labelled a poster child for eurozone austerity, Ireland’s proactive response to economic bust in 2008 is slowly generating tentative returns to prosperity once more. Three years after being rescued from bankruptcy with a package of €67.5bn from Europe and the International Monetary Fund in a bid to save the euro, Ireland became the first ailing European state to rid itself of life support in December 2013.
There were hard lessons learned in the preceding years. Warning the populace that ‘we can’t go mad again’, finance minister Michael Noonan described the crisis as the country’s worst period since the potato famine of 1845. And, having confirmed the state will not seek more funds from international investors, ministers further added that the austerity measures must continue.
Nevertheless, confidence is returning. According to research by Irish investment bank RaboDirect, economic sentiment among Irish investors is at a four-year high, as the bailout exit encourages more investors into Irish bonds. Research showed 81% of respondents expressed confidence in the outlook for the Irish economy, compared with just 55% last March.
The European Commission’s spring economic forecast showed Ireland’s job market was improving as long-term unemployment fell by 9.3%. Gross domestic product (GDP) is further set to grow to 3% in 2015, a marginally higher rate than the 2.9% anticipated in early 2014. The country is, however, still facing a mountain of debt and currently has the fourth-highest government debt in Europe. The debt-to-GDP ratio, which hit 123.7% in 2013, is expected to decline to 121% this year and 120.4% in 2015.
Overall, the road ahead is looking less rocky to Ireland’s legal market, as Edmund Butler, managing partner and head of disputes at LK Shields, says: ‘We’ve seen the lenders dusting themselves down after the crisis and saying, “what do we do next?” There’s still a lot of post-recession activity to be completed. But we are hoping that ordinary banking will return, and people will buy and sell via financing through banks with more prudence than previously – through an ordinary open market that’s funded by banks. The larger firms have been fortunate and there were no real casualties. We were well connected enough to make money.’
ByrneWallace managing partner Catherine Guy comments: ‘For mid-sized firms, corporate M&A is active. There’s a lot of activity around distressed assets. NAMA has publicly revised its strategy to liquidate everything in a much more aggressive timeline. Loan portfolios have provided prep work in terms of due diligence and on the sale transactions themselves. You could see multiple firms involved. On asset sales, you see a resurgence on property work and a broadening base of assets coming to market.
‘I’m not a Pollyanna, but having said that, there’s been a total rebuilding of confidence and even a tangible sentiment in the market. It’s coming through now where people are spending money again. Where we see it is in transactional activity, and broad M&A. What’s great about the market now, is that property isn’t the be-all and end-all anymore. It was hard to find solid, meaningful new evidence of new money but we are seeing that now with banks coming back. There are also new novel ways of funding. That’s all really positive.’
Corporate rainmakers and tax kings
With Irish M&A accounting for nearly 20% of all European deal activity in the first half of 2014, as well as over 1,000 overseas companies operating in the region, ensuring a strong stable of corporate partners at junior level is critical to the success of firms.
Arthur Cox has one of Dublin’s most touted younger corporate partners in Stephen Ranalow. An adviser to public and private companies, Ranalow this year advised Irish businessman Patrick McKillen on his loan portfolio purchase from Irish Bank Resolution Corporation as well as Bank of Ireland on the €2.8bn sale by the Irish state of its preference share and convertible securities interests. One Magic Circle partner comments: ‘Stephen is a really fantastic corporate lawyer at Arthur Cox, with wide-ranging skills, which span listed and private company work and very innovative bank capital work coming out of the crisis.’
William Fry’s 2008-promoted Andrew McIntyre was also widely cited. The mid-market transactions specialist regularly advises clients in the tech sector and most recently advised UK lottery company Camelot Group, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan and Premier Lotteries Ireland on its €405m acquisition of the Irish National Lottery licence for a 20-year period. According to one colleague, he has ‘incredibly good client handling skills’ with a ‘sense of conviction with his advice’ and clients are said to ‘gravitate towards him’.
Young star: Pamela O’Neill, Eversheds
1994 Trainee, Eversheds
2000 Associate, Eversheds
2005 Senior associate, Eversheds
2012 Partner, Eversheds
‘When people think of disputes, they often think of combat,’ reflects Eversheds lifer Pamela O’Neill. ‘But modern disputes are all about mediation and getting the right solution. You have to be driven that way. The traditional view of the role of lawyers of old would not fit with a modern situation at all.’
As well as project managing complex cases within the commercial litigation practice, O’Neill is particularly proud of her role as mentor within Eversheds’ established Women in Leadership initiative and in June drafted in 3 Temple Gardens’ leading criminal barrister Catherine Roberts to give a motivational speech to colleagues at the firm’s Dublin office.
‘Roberts would be the lawyer I admire the most,’ she adds. ‘I’ve got to know her recently and she’s achieved so many milestones.’ Recent work includes advising a major Irish bank on review by the Central Bank of Ireland over the sales of payment protection insurance, part of co-ordinated strategic advice to the client in the UK and Ireland.
O’Neill believes she still has a ‘huge learning curve’ ahead of her. ‘When you work in a law practice, becoming partner has to be one of your biggest achievements; that’s what you always aim for. But I feel my biggest achievement has yet to come – without sounding cheesy. I have to grow with the projects I’m working on.’
Matheson’s Shane Hogan is widely viewed as being at the forefront of the international tax field and regularly advises on major global transactions, including Eaton Corporation on its $11.8bn takeover of Cooper Industries and Actavis on its $8.5bn acquisition of Dublin-based Warner Chilcott. A member of the firm’s trainee liaison committee, Hogan also advised Questcor Pharmaceuticals on its $5.6bn merger agreement with Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals.
McCann FitzGerald provides no fewer than three recognised young corporate stars. Equity capital markets specialist Aidan Lawlor, who was promoted to partner in 2009 and recently advised Bord Gáis Éireann on the sale of its energy business for €1.1bn; Rory O’Malley, who has a particular focus on M&A and equity fundraisings in the renewables sector and made partner in 2013; and Conor O’Dwyer, who joined McCann at the end of last year from Arthur Cox.
O’Dwyer, who had been a partner at Arthur Cox since 2008, is rare in having moved as a corporate partner between two major Dublin firms. He wasted no time in being picked for work on significant mandates, including recently advising Petroceltic International on its $100m share placing.
Any ranking of top Irish deal teams has to include A&L Goodbody. Partner Alan Casey, promoted in 2012, is widely praised by rival firms and his portfolio illustrates his strength in broad corporate M&A work. Recent high-profile mandates include acting for Elan on Perrigo’s recommended $8.6bn takeover offer and Elan’s successful defence of Royalty Pharma’s $6.8bn hostile offer last year. He also acted for Eaton on its $13bn takeover offer for Cooper Industries.
As Ireland offers some of the most competitive corporate tax arrangements in Europe, it signals strong demand for Irish counsel on the matter and, as such, it is comparatively easy to spot the main players in this area. For Arthur Cox, an established name coming through the ranks is tax partner Ailish Finnerty. Made up six years ago, she was given a leadership role early on into her partnership and sent to New York as a resident alongside corporate partner Gary McSharry to oversee the firm’s Manhattan branch. In addition, Finnerty ‘presents well’ according to peers and is ‘doing very well on foreign direct investment from the US into Ireland, as well as aviation and other tax-based platforms’. At offshore firm Maples and Calder, The Legal 500-listed tax partner William Fogarty also received plaudits from rival firms. Having joined the firm’s highly rated tax practice in 2011, Fogarty was previously a senior tax associate with Linklaters and is experienced in private equity, investments and banking transactions.
Promoted to partner in January 2014, Matheson’s Catherine O’Meara was nominated externally and advises on Irish corporate taxation and stamp duty aspects of inward investment, transfer pricing, corporate reorganisations, mergers and acquisitions, and cross-border tax planning.
Ireland’s hotspots: Corporate M&A deals and investment funds ride out the recession
As Ireland strengthened its fiscal position at the end of 2013, optimism has increased. It seems, however, that little has changed, with pockets of legal work continuing to keep firms in business, most notably within investment funds and corporate/M&A practices.
The Irish government’s refusal to budge on its popular low rate of corporation tax, which still stands at 12.5%, has helped this considerably. This, alongside a traditionally strong bilateral relationship with the US, has been a very attractive prospect for American corporates in particular. So significant is the relationship, that the Irish development agency, IDA Ireland, estimates that America counts for 70% of Ireland’s foreign direct investment.
Further research carried out by Mason Hayes & Curran concludes that, over the last 20 years, Ireland has earned its reputation as a leading domicile for regulated investment funds, with over 43% of global alternative investment funds (both Irish and non-Irish domiciled) serviced in Ireland.
Key work for lawyers in the last year has included Mason Hayes advising Bank of America and JPMorgan on their financing of Royalty Pharma’s bid to acquire Elan for €7.3bn in 2013.
Pharmaceutical and life sciences markets were dominant for deal activity. High-value transactions in this sector saw the value of Irish deals increase to a record €97.4bn in the first half of 2014, up from €14.8bn in the same period last year. It means that Irish M&A accounted for nearly 20% of total ranked European activity. The data further showed big five firm A&L Goodbody represent on the most deals by number (15) while Arthur Cox took pole position when deals were ranked by value (€55.9bn) according to research by Experian.
Heavyweight mandates last year, however, saw the work shared, as evidenced by instructions won for the €6.5bn takeover of Ireland-based Warner Chilcott by Actavis, the biggest deal of the year, and US generic drug maker Perrigo’s €6.5bn buyout of Irish biotech firm Elan. Matheson’s head of corporate, Patrick Spicer, led a multi-disciplinary team on the Warner/Actavis deal while Dillon Eustace and A&L Goodbody both advised Perrigo on its bid for Elan.
Other large-scale M&A saw the ongoing sale of state assets, including Ireland’s state-owned energy provider Bord Gáis Éireann to a Centrica-led consortium for €1.1bn in March, led by McCann FitzGerald head of corporate finance Barry Devereux, Patricia Lawless and rising star Aidan Lawlor, while A&L Goodbody were instructed by the New Economy and Recovery Authority (NewEra), a branch of the National Treasury Management Agency and the co-ordinators of the sale.
Confidence in these particular areas is evidenced by significant numbers of up-and-coming lawyers choosing both corporate and investment funds as prospective areas to specialise in. For example, William Fry bulked up its asset management and investment funds team with the hire of acknowledged expert Ian Dillon from Cayman Islands practice Campbells in late October 2013.
Bryan Durkan, a principal consultant in the legal and compliance recruitment team of HRM Executive Recruitment, says funds, tax and corporate practices count towards much of the lateral movement between firms. Such is the popularity of these areas, he says, it has opened the door for Ireland’s in-house market, a traditionally slower growth market compared to the UK.
He says: ‘There was a lot of movement in-house last year where significant numbers of banking, litigation and corporate lawyers moved into the institutions. The downturn put a temporary pause on the growth of in-house opportunities in Ireland. There’s a growing understanding that moving in-house is just as rewarding and presents as many interesting challenges in a lawyer’s career, and as a consequence of the high number who made the move in-house in 2013, there is now a natural opening up of opportunities in the large firms at associate level.’
Hayes Solicitors litigation partner Joseph O’Malley notes that every level in the legal sector has faced tough competition, particularly in litigation, and says: ‘There has been a move towards fixed fees and cap fee arrangements for a lot of litigation that might formerly have been based on hourly rates which didn’t have a cap. There’s a lot of conscious devices used to try and minimise costs during the case such as management discovery so it doesn’t represent a huge portion of case costs.’
Early movers
Interestingly, banking and corporate partners are clearly enjoying the limelight while real estate and disputes practices garner rather less attention in terms of identifying standout performers. Nonetheless, selected lawyers in both fields were highlighted as coming into their own. ‘Top-class performer’ and former Herbert Smith lawyer Shane Fahy, now a real estate partner at McCann FitzGerald, is considered to be making a name for himself in the market.
Arthur Cox property partner Deirdre Barrett is considered ‘detailed without causing any delays’, and has acted for various multinational clients, including Novartis, MasterCard and Cisco on leases of their Irish-headquartered buildings.
William Fry partner Karen Sheil is also highly regarded. A specialist in property development and investment transactions (both loan and asset-based) – including syndicate investments using corporate, funds and other structures – Sheil is ‘quietly effective’ and is often instructed by Kennedy Wilson, the largest purchaser of property assets in Ireland in recent years. Sheil is also advising Ireland’s premier electricity utility ESB on the redevelopment of its headquarters. Her colleague, Brian O’Callaghan, is also specifically recommended for being good at handling clients and a ‘work generator’. He took over responsibility of key relationships for retail and leisure clients, including Poundland, pub chain J D Wetherspoon and Boots, which he has advised on the continued expansion of its Irish property portfolio.
Meanwhile, partners cited as ones to watch in the disputes space include Eversheds’ Pamela O’Neill (see profile). Beauchamps’ Emma Keegan and McCann FitzGerald’s Fiona O’Beirne – relatively new partners that are winning plaudits. Recommended by The Legal 500, Keegan sits on the litigation committee of the Dublin Solicitors Bar Association and is a panel solicitor for the Law Society of Ireland. Viewed by peers as having a ‘superb technical ability and calm, rational approach’, she advises on contractual and commercial disputes for clients, including financial institutions.
O’Beirne, promoted in 2012, heads McCann’s contentious IP group and specialises in IP litigation and complex commercial litigation in the Commercial Court and other superior courts. Her team acted for Vodafone in a case brought by EMI, Sony, Universal Music Ireland and Warner Music Ireland seeking injunctions requiring Vodafone and other internet service providers to block access to The Pirate Bay website.
Although the fabled ‘Celtic Tiger’ years are firmly in the past, it appears the Irish legal community is embarking upon a period of renewed optimism (see ‘Ireland’s hotspots: Corporate M&A deals and investment funds ride the tide of recession’). Although this is by no means an exhaustive list of impressive Irish lawyers to make partner in the last five years, the above partners have forged a career amid brutal market conditions and at a time when the profession was not seeking to promote associates to partnership in sizeable numbers.
Successful partners today in finance, tax, corporate, real estate and disputes are evidently required to display broad social as well as technical skills. And in an environment where opportunities are even scarcer compared to London law firms, due to the limited numbers of profitable Irish firms against the thousands of law graduates coming through the ranks, demonstrating key business skills early on is more crucial than ever. While many players in Ireland’s legal profession generally come into their own much later into partnership, it is interesting to note the high level of responsibility and leadership these young partners have had to display at an early stage in their careers.
As daunting as it may seem to try to make your way in the clubby but competitive Dublin legal community, the individuals highlighted above have shown that, for the truly dedicated, the rewards are worth the risk. LB
sarah.downey@legalease.co.uk