Seán Guerin SC has been elected to chair the Council of the Bar of Ireland, and will take up the role from September, succeeding Sara Phelan SC.

Educated at St Peter’s College Wexford and St Andrew’s College, Dublin, he studied law at UCD and Université de Nancy II (France). He qualified as a barrister at King’s Inns and was called to the Bar in 1997.

He has been in practice at the Bar of Ireland since 1998 and was called to the Inner Bar and appointed Senior Counsel in 2013.

Based at the Law Library in Dublin, the new chair practises mainly in public law – including criminal, regulatory, and administrative law.

He has served for many years on the Professional Practices Committee of the Bar Council and has been chair of the Criminal State Bar Committee since 2022.

Values

Guerin described his election as “a great honour”.

“The values of integrity, ceaseless diligence, fearless representation, and excellence which created and sustain that record will continue to guide the Bar through the current changing legal environment,” he stated.

“In a profession faced with significant structural and technological change, and social, political, and economic pressures, there is a heavy onus on the Bar Council to articulate those values and to communicate the continuing importance of the profession of barrister to the maintenance of the rule of law and the protection of human rights,” he added.