About

The vibrancy of Dublin’s tech community is well established, and Twitter, one of the world’s largest social media companies by users, currently bases its European, Middle Eastern and African operations in the Irish capital. Legal support spanning the entire EMEA region is led by Philip Merrills-Dearn operating as associate general counsel and EMEA head of legal in the Dublin office. Jeff Rich, former legal director for the Twitter EMEA operation, and current associate general counsel and legal director in the US explained the need to ‘localise’ a legal support function rather than simply base support from their US headquarters. The main value of regional counsel is with respect to accessibility and responsiveness, rather than reporting to US and there being time zone issues and things getting lost in translation. Partnering closely with business colleagues across the world on all aspects of expansion and operations, the team are key in all legal facets of the Twitter business, including the development of internal policies, processes and templates.