Maria McCloskey

Ms McCloskey was previously director and solicitor at The PILS Project, leading an organisation which seeks to secure improvements in the protection and realisation of human rights and equality in Northern Ireland by supporting public interest litigation.

Earlier in her career, she was an associate director at Napier Solicitors with over 12 years’ experience specialising in civil litigation.

She completed a Master’s degree in human rights law in 2017 and, after almost 15 years in private practice, moved to the charity/NGO sector.

In 2020, she took up the role of immigration solicitor at the Children’s Law Centre, where she represented unaccompanied asylum seeking children and child victims of trafficking.

She is a member of the Law Society of Northern Ireland’s human rights and equality committee, having previously chaired the working group which preceded it, and chair of its advocacy course working group, having obtained a certificate in advanced advocacy from the Law Society and the National Institute for Trial Advocacy in 2014.

In September 2024, she helped deliver advocacy training to lawyers in San Diego.

Ms McCloskey is interested in human rights, equality and global development issues, including asylum, the empowerment of women, advancing rights and protections for minority groups, and climate justice.

Founded in 2007, IRLI collaborates with academics, judges, legal practitioners, policy-makers and civil society around the world to advance collective knowledge of the relationship between rule of law, democracy, sustained economic development and human rights.

The project was originally founded by the Law Society of Ireland and the Bar of Ireland, with the Law Society of Northern Ireland and the Bar of Northern Ireland joining in 2015.