Arthur Cox has offices in Dublin, Belfast, London, New York and Silicon Valley, and the firm’s total headcount across all its offices is 870 people. The firm added 20 solicitors through 2018, including three funds partners in lateral hires. Arthur Cox was named Most Inclusive Firm at the Managing Partners’ Forum awards in March 2019, and Orla O’Connor is succeeding Ciaran Bolger as the firm’s chairperson in May 2019.

As Managing Partner, what are the firm management issues that top your priority list?

The role of Managing Partner is to keep a balance between all aspects of managing the firm – our principal focus is to make sure that we are providing the best advice and service to our clients. That involves making sure that we have the best people working in teams to service our clients.  Ensuring that the firm adapts to the changing landscape is also key.  We have, for example, invested a great deal in technology – both internally in the firm and in products and software that enable us to deliver streamlined and cost effective solutions to our clients.

In the past year, what areas of the practice have you strengthened with appointments?

We continue to invest across the firm at all levels and this year, we are a slightly bigger firm that we were last year.  All areas in the firm have been busy in the past year and we recruit to make sure that we have sufficient strength and depth to meet the demand for our services. In the past year, we have continued to invest in our funds group which has grown substantially in the past year since we were joined by three funds partners in lateral hires.

We have also recently announced an expansion of our aviation team and have appointed Rob Murphy, formerly head of aviation at Freshfields as co-chair (with Caroline Devlin) of that group. We have also appointed Laura Cunningham as a partner – Laura rejoins the firm from Milbank in London. Aviation is a key sector in the Irish economy and we are very excited about the potential there. In December 2018, we also announced the appointment of five new partners at the firm across key practice areas: real estate, tax, disputes, finance and corporate M&A.

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How challenging for your firm is the solicitor retention and recruitment issue?

We are a people business and retention and recruitment is and always will be key.  We work hard at maintaining a supportive and inclusive environment where everyone is encouraged to excel and to reach their potential.  In recent years, we have had a strong focus on diversity and inclusion across a number of areas, including gender.  One-third of our partners are women and whilst that is positive we cannot be complacent and we need to improve on that. We were very pleased recently to be awarded Most Inclusive Firm at the Managing Partners’ Forum awards in London.

What deal the firm advised on would you single out from 2018?

Arthur Cox advised the Irish Stock Exchange plc on its €137 million acquisition by Euronext NV. The sale of the ISE was a key strategic transaction in the context of the post-Brexit landscape of Ireland's financial markets. The ISE, in existence since 1793, holds a unique place in the country’s financial infrastructure and the transaction responded to the strategic challenges and opportunities inherent in the changing regulatory relationship between the EU and the UK, and optimised Ireland’s position to take advantage of such opportunities, by strengthening its position as a European anchor and as an open and international venue.