Muireann Dennehy

The new “Co Deploy” portal was created by the business law firm as its submission to the Financial Times Innovative Lawyers Global Legal Hackathon Challenge, which ran from 17 April to 22 May and saw more than 170 projects submitted by more than 2,700 participants from 225 organisations worldwide.

The portal created by the MHC team aims to match-make enterprising and altruistic businesses to allow them to collaborate or simply share experience and knowledge to deliver solutions to COVID-19 issues, enable businesses to redeploy their businesses and workforces, and equip companies with basic legal know-how and understanding of the pit falls in adapting their businesses and/or skill-sets.

Muireann Dennehy, partner at Mason Hayes & Curran, said: “The COVID-19 crisis has been a time of unprecedented challenge for companies, but many are looking to re-purpose their businesses in order to address urgent needs thrown up by the crisis.

“We have advised a number of businesses during this time, and understand the difficulties they face in terms of pivoting their operations in a safe and lawful manner. Our submission for the Global Legal Hackathon Challenge Co Deploy is a user-friendly and secure on-line space for information sharing and collaboration.

“Businesses can join the platform and team up with other like-minded businesses and individuals, sharing information in order to support a safe and lawful business pivot.”

The MHC team is now calling for other organisations who may wish to partner with them to further develop the portal.

Ms Dennehy said: “As we start to build out the portal into a functioning marketplace for businesses, we are looking for other organisations with the technological expertise to assist with further developing the key features of the platform in order to realise the goal of supporting businesses through pivoting their operations.

“This is an exciting opportunity to further develop a resource that will be able to assist companies in surviving through this crisis and beyond.”