Dublin was calling and he joined a large firm to do his traineeship, learning about intellectual property law and corporate law and specialising in partnership law.

After qualifying, he joined the European Commission in Brussels as a legal advisor in intellectual property law. “I enjoyed that immensely. It was a great job in the sense of working with other nationalities.”

• Traineeship in corporate law
• Legal advisor to European Commission
• PhD in partnership law
• Lecturer in partnership law
• Sole practitioner
• High Court judge

But with the onset of married life he felt drawn to return to Dublin and felt that lecturing and researching on his expert area of partnership law was the next step. So he then took three years out of the workplace to complete a PhD on the topic at UCD before going on to lecture in Trinity in partnership law.

“Although I enjoyed teaching immensely I didn’t feel that [spending] each each year teaching the same subject was of sufficient interest.

“Work starting coming to me on the basis that I had specialised in partnership law. At that stage I set up a sole practice and ended up for ten or fifteen years practising in partnership law, advising everyone from taxi drivers to hospital consultants in relation to getting in to and out of partnership.”

Satisfaction

He remarked that there is a certain satisfaction in setting up any business, whether that is a coffee shop or a law practice, in going from zero, literally, to making a living out of it.

However his restless streak surfaced again. “The novelty was beginning to wear off, in the sense that the same disputes and the same issues were arising. That’s when the prospect of applying to become a High Court judge came into my mind.

“I was nominated in December 2015 to the High Court. I feel very lucky and privileged to have that position.

“Being a qualified solicitor opens up a huge number of avenues. It allowed me to work in a big firm when I was younger, and to have the collegiality and fun of working on big transactions with colleagues of a similar age.

“After that I had the job satisfaction of teaching, which I really enjoyed. Then I had the diversity of working in the European Commission, an international organisation, effectively working in-house as a civil servant.

“Then I was lucky enough to be my own boss for a period as a sole practitioner and now I have the privilege of sitting on the High Court.

“The message I have is that all of that arose, in my opinion, from the fact that I qualified as a practising solicitor. While my career was relatively varied, it still was very much within the law.

The qualification of solicitor is a wonderful starting point for any career, Mr Justice Twomey concluded.