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

During my time as interim general counsel of Bord Gáis Energy, my team successfully advised on many large projects including construction contracts for two new peaker power plants, the Kestrel Energy Storage Project, a joint venture relating to the development of an offshore wind project, and the renewal of our sponsorship of the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, amongst others.  

As strategic legal advisor to Centrica, my current role focuses on M&A projects, where I lead on acquisitions to enhance Centrica’s portfolio and accelerate our market penetration to energise a greener, fairer future, and strategic divestments to rationalise the efficiency of Centrica’s broad portfolio and return value to shareholders.  

Could you share an example of a time when you came up with an innovation that improved how your legal team works and did not come at a large expense?  

As chief legal officer of Nuritas (a start-up biotech company), I overhauled the legal ecosystem underpinning the customer journey from quote to cash by standardising templates (NDAs, Material Transfer Agreements (MTAs), Quotes, Supply Agreements, and Purchase Orders) and embedded them into our Salesforce CRM platform. This significantly reduced the sales cycle, resulting in a seamless end to end process enabling customers to click through to our standard legal terms, and avoided bespoke terms and manual negotiation with an increased risk profile.  

In your role, how do you balance the need to protect the organisation’s interests today while also considering legal implications and opportunities that may arise in the future?   

A key part of a general counsel’s role is to future-proof the protections of the organisation’s ever-evolving needs by looking around corners; asking the “what ifs”; answering the “so what’s”; and building in as much flexibility, contingency and risk mitigation as possible.  Clearly, this needs to be balanced against an assessment of the likelihood and impact of the risks to get the job done efficiently.  

Knowing the organisation’s future strategy, industry and competitive landscape, regulatory environment and stakeholder’s expectations is key. In my role, as in any general counsel role, knowing the law is table stakes, but truly partnering with the key business stakeholders allows me to be a thought-leader who can distil complex legal concepts to contextualise and commercialise my advice, anticipating and mitigating the risks while embracing strategic opportunities.  

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

With so many global companies based in Ireland, the general counsel’s role will continue to evolve and grow. Rather than relying exclusively on outside counsel, evolved companies will increasingly value having a general counsel at the table who knows not just the law, but consistently demonstrates strong, informed, balanced and insightful commercial judgement that enables effective and productive decision-making aligned with business objectives and strategy. 

The trend of in-house lawyers taking on additional areas of responsibility outside of pure legal will continue in areas such as legal operations, HR, and IT, and the role of the general counsel as chief of staff is emerging. In parallel, legal operations is a huge growth area with artificial intelligence now permeating the legal world. General counsel are expected to lean into technology to leverage the efficiencies and cost savings technology can provide; they have a central role to play in embracing technology while aligning organisational values and ethics, and regulatory and legal requirements in this space. 

Finally, general counsel are emerging as key change agents in ESG and CSR initiatives, which are key focal points for organisations, investors, regulators, and stakeholders alike. As the general counsel sits at the intersection of legal, compliance, reputation, and risk, this presents a unique opportunity for them to provide real strategic impact to their organisation by showcasing not just what is legal, or what is right, but what is best.