As a general counsel, how do you anticipate and prepare for potential legal and regulatory challenges that may arise, particularly in light of emerging technologies and evolving business landscapes?  

In my past roles, I have successfully anticipated and prepared for these potential challenges by combining several approaches. My starting point has always been to cultivate close working relationships across the full spectrum of key internal stakeholders at the company. This helps to ensure that my understanding of the company’s business priorities and intended markets remains up to date, which enables me to re-focus some of my team’s efforts on different areas and matters quickly as needed.  

In addition, I have spent time throughout my career cultivating professional and industry networks as a source of insight to identify and suggest means of addressing potential challenges. There are helpful peer networks for in-house lawyers in Ireland to discuss potential challenges confidentially. These include the AmCham General Counsel Forum, which I previously chaired. A key factor which I value in the external legal advisors with whom I have worked is their ability to be thoughtful in sharing newsletters on issues relevant to the company based on their familiarity with its business.  

Finally, I read a significant amount of reputable news sources on geopolitical issues and evolving market trends, and this also helps me to ‘horizon scan’ for potential legal and regulatory challenges.      

How do you see the general counsel role evolving in Ireland over the next five-ten years?  

The next five to ten years should be an interesting and exciting time with good opportunities for general counsel in Ireland. Effective general counsel will need to continue developing their expertise in rapidly evolving and increasingly EU-regulated areas such as artificial intelligence (AI), and environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards. Cybersecurity and associated regulation will also be an area of focus for general counsel, as many organisations continue their digital transformation process. Giving practical advice on how to address the impact of these regulatory changes on the business will be challenging for general counsel, especially in dynamic and fast-moving market environments.   

With technological advances and companies facing cost pressures, general counsel will increasingly need to be knowledgeable and creative in using new and emerging technologies and tools to deliver agile, optimised, and scalable legal support. These technologies and tools will also continue to be critical in providing data-driven reporting on the legal and compliance function’s delivery of value to the business.   

Given efficiency pressures, I expect that it will be increasingly common for general counsel to assume management responsibilities for a business function in addition to day-to-day responsibilities in respect of the legal and compliance function. For example, this may involve combining a general counsel’s role with a chief people officer role in respect of HR, or a chief administrative officer role to manage procurement-type functions. This trend has already started to emerge in other countries such as the US and the UK.