Legal trends and career pathways were on the agenda at an in-house legal counsel summit at Pinsent Masons this week.

The firm’s ritzy premises at Dublin’s Windmill Lane welcomed a global sweep of general counsel on 25 September 2018, as part of a series by the Lawyers Business Development Club.

Ruth Murphy, counsel at BT Enterprise, explained that her move in-house was driven by curiosity to see how decisions impacted on organisations, post-transaction.

Simon Hollywood of ICON spoke about how organisational culture influences decision-making in the face of disruption.

Simon quoted Mike Tyson's famous maxim “all my opponents come in with a plan, until they get punched in the face”.

Sarah Lennon, Irish counsel at Google, spoke of the difficulty in basing decisions on previous assumptions, when the pace of change is so fast in technology.

Speed was also a theme for Lory Kehoe of ConsenSys.  He predicted that the impact of Blockchain technology would be more quickly felt in comparison with the time it took the internet to reach maturity.

Brendan Noud from LearnUpon spoke about the potential for learning management systems to use cloud technology, making them accessible to smaller organisations.

Jennifer Hourihane used her legal background to set-up Oathello which has earned a place at Barclays Techstars Accelerator in London.

The start-up streamlines the booking and payment process around notarisation of documents.

Talent pipeline

Having established a legal team of 30 people in just two years, Nigel Kemp of Citibank Europe praised the talent pipeline in Dublin legal market. 

Pinsent Masons partner Dennis Agnew thanked the speakers and said the event is an excellent showcase of the exciting talent in Ireland, both in legal services and in business.