What are the most significant cases or transactions that your legal team has recently been involved in?

The Monaghan Group has been involved in a broad range of transactions in recent times, spanning finance, corporate, and commercial related transactions and matters pertaining to its mushroom and compost production business. The Group is situated across a number of jurisdictions, and each of these bring their own challenges (and rewards!).

The agricultural and food and beverages sector has seen many significant developments in Ireland in recent times, and while navigating our way through these has kept the Group busy, it has also allowed us to develop and make further improvements in respect of the business.

How have you attempted to bring the legal department closer to your business colleagues?

Communication is key. Working closely with the CFO to ensure that he understands what is going on in legal has been extremely important, together with attendance at weekly finance meetings so that the finance team as a whole know what legal matters are in play and what is being spent and why. Being actively responsive to all teams seems to have been acknowledged and appreciated by many, and provided comfort that legal is approachable and there to assist and advise appropriately. Further, ensuring that I continue to learn and understand all aspects of the business means that I can add most value to and participate in the business and its development.

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

I expect the role of the general counsel in Ireland to continue to evolve and develop over the coming years. The highly regulated landscape along with the increased focus on corporate governance will undoubtedly continue. The general counsel’s role will most likely become of even more strategical importance.

Of course, it will be interesting to see how the world of AI may have an influence, but using AI seems to present current challenges in terms of bias, transparency, security and compliance with data protection laws. I expect that a general counsel will have a central role to play in aligning company values and ethics, and regulatory and legal requirements.

In general, what would you like to see change about the external law firms you use?

I would like to our external law firms to ask for more feedback on their performance. Generally speaking, our external counsel perform extremely well, but I am rarely asked for individual lawyer feedback or for general feedback on how a transaction has been performed. I think that this is an essential component in ensuring that client expectations have been met and that value has been provided.