Representatives of the Bar Council of Ireland (including the Chairman, the Vice-Chairman and the Director) attended the 2015 Global Law Summit in London at the invitation of the British Ambassador to Ireland, HE Dominick Chilcott.
The Irish delegation also included the Minister for Justice and Equality, Frances Fitzgerald, along with officials from her Department.
The Summit was essentially a legal conference with approximately 2,000 attendees including practitioners, business leaders, public sector decision makers and government officials from around the world and coincided with a celebration of 800 years since Magna Carta. Launched by Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor, the Rt. Hon Chris Grayling, speakers included the Attorney General of the United States, Eric Holder, Lord John Thomas, Lord Chief Justice Geoffrey Ma, Chief Justice of the High Court of Appeal in Hong Kong, Anne-Marie Leroy, Senior Vice-President and General Counsel of the World Bank and others including the Chairman of the Bar of England and Wales, Ms Patricia O’Brien, Ireland’s Ambassador to the UN, and Boris Johnson, Mayor of London. The event was attended by the Chairs of all the Bars from the Common Law world and included numerous presentations on rule of law issues along with presentations on the challenges to the legal profession.