who_we_are
Orla O'Connor - Partner, Banking
- LL B, Trinity College, Dublin
- BCL, Oxford University
Far too much time spent watching TV courtroom dramas led me to a career in law - it was either that or a career in acting and I knew where my talents didn't lie! After four years in Trinity and summers spent working in London, Denmark and the United States, I spent a year in Oxford doing a B.C.L. degree. Oxford was a fantastic experience - full of students of every nationality and background imaginable. Despite the workload, it was a very sociable year. Far from encouraging me to start work and join the real world, it opened so many doors overseas that I ended up spending the following year teaching English in Japan and travelling through Asia.
I finally returned to Ireland to begin my training with Arthur Cox and my initial stint was working for a partner with the Corporate and Commercial Group. It was revealing to discover how legal issues are resolved in practice and to discover how much I had - and still have - to learn. I spent time in other areas of commercial and in tax, litigation and property before qualifying in banking and financial services where I am now a partner.
My work involves acting primarily for banks either lending individually or as part of a syndicate of banks to fund projects such as hotels, houses, apartments, offices or other development or construction projects or to fund acquisitions or other capital requirements of companies. The work is diverse - everything from pubs to windmills and each with its own issues. Even where the project or assets being financed are similar, no two cases are ever the same. Identifying the legal issues and finding practical workable solutions is always a challenge but one which keeps the job interesting.
Training with Arthur Cox prepares you well for practice - the experience you get is as varied as it is ever likely to be in practice and the challenges mean there is never a dull moment!
