Monckton Chambers

Door tenant

Michael is a leading silk in commercial, competition and EU law at the Irish Bar and is a member of Lincoln’s Inn and Middle Temple. He practices from 4 Arran Square, Arran Quay, Dublin 7. Holding Masters degrees in economics and law respectively from University College Dublin and an LL.M. from the University of Pennsylvania, Michael started his career as an associate with Shearman & Sterling in New York in the early 1980s before commencing practice at the Irish Bar. In 1996 Michael was appointed by the Irish Government as Chairman of the Competition and Mergers Review Group the majority of whose recommendations were subsequently implemented into Irish law in the Competition Act 2002.

Michael appears regularly before the High Court, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court of Ireland and frequently appears before the Court of Justice of the EU.  He also has an extensive practice in commercial arbitration (domestic and international) both as counsel and as arbitrator.  He has had appointments as arbitrator from the ICC Court of Arbitration, the London Court of International Arbitration and is one of Ireland’s representatives on the ICC Commission on Arbitration.  He is also a member of the International Centre for Dispute Resolution (ICDR) Panel of Arbitrators and is a former President of Arbitration Ireland.  Michael is Chairman of the Irish Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel (Irish Sports Council), former President of Irish Rule of Law International and a former Chairman of the Bar Council of Ireland for two years.

He was elected an ordinary Bencher of Middle Temple in 2022 and a Bencher of the Honorable Society of King’s Inns in 2007 of which he is also a Council member. The following year he was elected as a Fellow of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers in the United States of which he is now also a director. Michael has been a Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Economics at Maynooth University on Legal Aspects of Competition and Regulation in Maynooth’s Master of Economic Science Programme.  He is currently Adjunct Professor of Law at UCD Sutherland Law School. In the much more interesting parts of his life he is a board member of the Irish Film Institute, a former Council member of the Dublin Theatre Festival and a member of the Wexford Opera Development Council.

Call to Irish Bar (1978) Call to New York Bar (1981) Call to English Bar (1987) Silk (Ireland) (1994) Call to Bar of US Supreme Court (2003) Call to Northern Ireland Bar (2011)

Door tenant Monckton Chambers 2005 to date.

Irish Bar Council.

Called 1987; silk in Ireland 1994; called to the Bar of the US Supreme Court 2003; door tenant Monckton Chambers 2005 to date.