About

‘The aircraft leasing industry is truly global’, Ed Riley says, adding: ‘Avolon has a “can-do” culture and is continually looking to innovate wherever possible’. Widely respected across Ireland’s legal community, Riley drew particular acclaim for his role in Avolon’s IPO on the NYSE in December 2014. ‘This was the culmination of the first four and a half years of Avolon’s growth and was the largest ever IPO of an Irish-founded company’, Riley says. ‘It was a challenging, interesting and ultimately successful experience’. As its inaugural in-house counsel, Riley joined Avalon five years ago, shortly after its inception, building the legal function in step with the business. During this period, the aviation specialist’s global business has expanded spectacularly, to one comprising 126 aircraft with $5.6bn net worth. Heading a compact team of eight, dealing with the sheer volume and sophistication of transactions, carries significant challenges, Riley says. Conversely, he has harnessed this breadth and quality of work, to create uniquely holistic roles for transactional lawyers. This, he says, has made recruiting and retaining talent very easy. ‘Rather than being siloed into particular types of transaction or geographic areas, the transaction lawyers each cover the full range of transactions that Avolon enters into’, he explains ‘This breadth and variety of work has been a key differentiator in attracting high quality lawyers’. When it comes to outside counsel, client focus is key for Riley. ‘We appreciate law firms who invest time in really getting to know us and our business – the people, the systems and the issues that really matter to us. This is invariably reflected in better and more efficient service’. They have also had secondment arrangements with a number of firms. ‘This has always been mutually beneficial as it has helped scale up in-house resources when necessary and has provided the secondees with valuable commercial experience and insight into the needs and demands of their client’.