News

The Galway Solicitors Bar Association (GSBA) will host a CPD event followed by drinks and a summer BBQ later this month. Ruadhán Ó Ciaráin BL and Dr Róisín Á Costello BL will speak at the CPD event in the Oak Bar at the Glenlo Abbey Hotel on 28 June 2024 fro

The Law Society of Northern Ireland has published its new diversity, equality and inclusion strategy. Developed through consultation with members and wider stakeholders, the strategy identifies three strategic objectives under the headings of 'access to the profession', 'building a successful career

Dublin firm O'Brien Redmond Solicitors has merged with Ken Kennedy Law, the two firms announced today. Inspired by a generation of family solicitors before him, O'Brien Redmond Solicitors was established by Brian O'Brien in 1997. Mr O'Brien's mother was a solicitor and her aunt became Ireland's firs

Intellectual property specialist Lane IP, with an office on Dublin's North Wall Quay, has been acquired by Swedish-headquartered Abion. All offices and affiliated of Lane IP, which is based in the UK, will rebrand as Abion in September 2024 to support Abion's long-term ambition to build an internati

Pro bono work has been "mainstreamed into the Irish legal culture" — but that was not the case until relatively recently, FLAC chief executive Eilis Barry points out. When Ms Barry joined the legal charity FLAC in 2016, Éamonn Conlon SC, then a partner in A&L Goodbody LLP, had just

Northern Ireland's Department of Justice is considering whether journalists should be allowed to report on family court proceedings in response to calls from domestic abuse survivors. Several women have met with the victims of crime commissioner designate to push for increased transparency in the fa

The government has confirmed it has received the 700-page report of the scoping inquiry into historical sexual abuse in day and boarding schools run by religious orders and is now preparing for its publication. Mary O'Toole SC was appointed in March 2023 to lead the scoping inquiry, which was origin

Motorists can take to the Autobahn just a few hours after lighting up a cannabis joint under new rules. German MPs have voted to back a new legal driving limit of 3.5 nanograms of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) — the main psychoactive component of cannabis — per millilitre of blood.

A fresh proposal to increase Northern Ireland's minimum age of criminal responsibility, currently the lowest in Europe at just 10 years old, is to come before the Executive. Justice minister Naomi Long has previously spoken of her frustration at the lack of political consensus on raising the age (MA

Ryanair has lost an EU court challenge against the European Commission's approval of a €10 billion solvency support fund launched by the Spanish government in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Spain notified the Commission in July 2020, at the height of the pandemic, of the aid scheme to set u

Dozens of lawyers have signed an open letter urging an end to the "crisis in the creation of enduring powers of attorney". Since April 2023, enduring powers of attorney must be created through an online portal managed by the Decision Support Service (DSS).

RDJ LLP has become the first law firm to engage in a pilot programme with the Law Society of Ireland designed to promote mental health and wellbeing within law firms. The pilot programme, titled Culture First | Well within the Law, is aimed at developing a long-term strategy around psychological wel

A PSNI report on the use of covert surveillance against journalists and lawyers has not provided adequate reassurances, the Northern Ireland Policing Board has said. The 60-page report, published yesterday, states firmly: "The central public concern has been that there was widespread, and unjustifie

Two British judges have resigned from Hong Kong's Court of Final Appeal. Lords Collins and Sumption, former justices of the UK Supreme Court, announced their resignations yesterday.

Nearly a third of organisations have not yet implemented green procurement practices and a fifth do not feel prepared to do so, a new survey by Mason Hayes & Curran suggests. The business law firm's survey sheds light on the barriers organisations face in embracing the green transition as Irelan