About

Orla Joyce is the head of legal of Heineken Ireland, the Irish branch of the international beverages company well known for its famous Heineken lager brand, which it compliments with approximately 250 other products on the market worldwide. Operating within a relatively new and compact function, having only been set up three years ago in a fast moving and very competitive market, Heineken Ireland’s legal team also consists of a senior paralegal and a secondee from an external law firm. Displaying their commitment to developing legal talent, the team at Heineken Ireland work closely with University College Cork with their innovative legal internship programme, having had five law graduate work placements over the last two years. Innovations that have helped steer the company towards achieving its strategy include the development of ‘a core team, building a contract management system, setting up a bespoke precedent bank and putting in place legal services contracts with our external providers’, Joyce explains. Further showing the team’s desire to innovate, the legal training is provided with the mind-set of being as ‘creative as possible’, this even extends to inviting guest speakers and showing animated videos to explain legal messages to the relevant parties. Such cross function collaboration is of huge benefit to Heineken Ireland, especially as all legal work is undertaken very closely with the marketing teams on key issues such as trademarks, data protection and intellectual property law. Despite the conditions the team face, Joyce claims that the main focus is to ‘provide excellent legal support to the business in circumstances where we are a small team with limited external resources’.