According to the firm, Ms Friedmann, who has an LLB and LLM from Trinity College Dublin, is Ireland’s first-ever dedicated innovation and legal technology graduate employee.

Over 120 recent graduates from Irish and international universities applied for the newly-created role, covering a diverse range of disciplines including technology, software engineering and business. Eight finalists were shortlisted after video submissions and interviews.

Kyle Gribben, head of Matheson’s digital services group, said: “The Matheson innovation and legal technology graduate scheme for 2022 is the first of its kind in Ireland.

“As a firm, we are strongly committed to the use of legal technology and innovative ways of working for the benefit of our clients. Given the growth of our digital services group, it made sense to start training legal technologists in-house, so we were delighted to have received such a large number of high-quality applications.

“The quality of candidate was exemplary and we are delighted to have appointed Inari.”

Ms Friedmann, whose father hails from Germany and her mother from Clare, grew up in Augsburg in Germany. She came to study in Ireland after completing her secondary school education in Germany. She is fully bilingual in German and English.

She will spend the next 12 months rotating through the various areas in the multi-disciplinary digital services group, working directly with Matheson’s legal teams, and with clients, across a variety of practice areas.

Matheson has also welcomed Leslie Okafor, Paul Buckley, Siomha Buckley and Jessica O’Hanlon to the firm’s business services graduate programme.

This two-year programme will provide graduates with skills and experience derived from working across a number of business functions including HR, strategic accounts, learning and development, marketing and business development.