Pinsent Masons to launch Dublin presence

The office will focus on the Financial Services and Technology sectors initially. A team of three eminent practitioners in Dublin will found the new practice, namely: 

• Gayle Bowen, a partner specialising in Investment Funds with over 12 years experience advising international asset managers in relation to all aspects of Irish regulated UCITS and alternative products. Gayle is currently Chair of the Irish Funds Legal & Regulatory Committee, which liaises with the Central Bank, the Irish Government and European bodies to represent the interests of the Irish funds industry. Gayle has a particular expertise in relation to cross border mergers. She joins from Walkers.
• Andreas Carney, a partner who specialises in outsourcing and other material service arrangements, data protection and IT. Andreas has advised extensively on IT infrastructure projects, including software and systems development, systems implementation and integration, systems support and maintenance, hardware supply, cloud services and co-location and other data centre arrangements. A fluent German speaker, Andreas is ranked for Information Technology in Legal 500 and joins from Matheson. 
• Dennis Agnew, a partner who specialises in advising domestic and international companies on all aspects of Corporate law. He is recognised as a leading inward investment lawyer by Chamber and Partners and joins from Byrne Wallace where he set up and led the firm's New York office as well as practising in Dublin. 

The new office will target work initially from the 50 of Pinsent Masons top 250 clients who are present in Ireland, and will bring the total number of Pinsent Masons lawyers across the island of Ireland to 12 partners and over fifty lawyers. 

Richard Foley, Senior Partner of Pinsent Masons, says: 

"Our vision is to be recognised as an international market leader in the five global sectors in which we specialise. We have operated in Ireland for some time on a range of matters and Dublin has long been in our thinking as a key global hub for the financial services and technology industries. That status has only become even more significant in the context of Brexit. The feedback we've had from our clients as we developed our Ireland strategy was that they would welcome a disruptor coming into the market and our reputation as an innovator is therefore of significant interest to them. They want a firm which understands their sector, can support them in an integrated way across multiple geographies and - above all - won't simply provide the same old services in the same old way. We have recruited an outstanding founding team who share our commitment to meeting those needs and bringing Pinsent Masons' ethos of innovation to the Dublin market." 

Pinsent Masons has a significant reputation for innovation in the legal market. It was one of the first law firms to launch a contract lawyer service and is the majority shareholder in Cerico, a business which provides cloud-based solutions to regulatory compliance challenges. Earlier this year the firm acquired a 20% stake in legal outsourcing business Yuzu Law . It has also developed and deployed its own artificial intelligence solution, TermFrame  . It was named the Most Innovative Law Firm in Europe by the Financial Times in 2015.