Key team members: Paul Kerrigan (General counsel and chief risk officer), Rosannagh Murphy, Grainne Ahern, Ruth O’Regan and Catherine Murphy

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

The legal team has worked closely with the firm’s leaders on multiple priority projects, ranging from heading multi-service line, multi-jurisdictional client MSA negotiations, to driving the strategic acquisition of a leading tax consultancy. Paul Kerrigan – the general counsel and chief risk officer – is a trusted advisor to Deloitte’s leadership and works closely with the managing partner, chair, executive committee, and department heads on issues such as governance, M&A, contentious matters, and risk strategy.

In addition to their work with Deloitte Ireland, the general counsel and legal team are reputable participants in the wider Deloitte North and South Europe legal community. The general counsel is currently part of the leadership team driving the deployment of two separate multimillion-euro technology deployments across the Deloitte North and South Europe legal and risk functions.

What has been the number one challenge that has impacted you over the past year?

The past year has seen rapid growth across all of Deloitte’s service lines. Naturally, this increases the volume and time sensitivity of queries to our legal team. However, this has been managed through strong collaboration across the team, deployment of additional resources, and through the further embedding the ‘Legal Business Partner’ concept – where each senior lawyer is designated with primary responsibility for one or more service lines. This leads to greater familiarity and trust between the legal team and key business stakeholders, enhancing turnaround times and outcomes.

Has the increasing consciousness of climate change and sustainability affected your company and the team’s priorities, and if so, how?

Deloitte Ireland seeks to be a leader in providing climate change and sustainability advisory services to our clients. Similarly, with a young workforce, our internal climate change and sustainability agenda continues to rapidly evolve. Having built strong relationships and trust networks throughout the business, we are involved in key climate change and sustainability initiatives from the outset, enabling us to shape initiatives in legally sound and commercially valuable ways.