Turnover at leading Irish law firm Mason Hayes & Curran rose by 7 per cent to a record €122 million last year, driven by “robust growth” across the business.
Speaking to The Irish Times, Will Carmody, the firm’s managing partner, described 2024 as a year of two halves. “The early part of the year was a little bit slower and then it got busy in the second half of the year. That was probably driven by the improvement of the macroeconomic conditions, as interest rates and inflation started to ease off and elections got determined. Big investment decisions were probably waiting for those outcomes.”
Mason Hayes increased its headcount during the year, growing staff numbers to more than 650, with seven new partners added. In terms of the firm’s policy for hybrid working, Mr Carmody said it was seeing a “gradual increase” in attendance in the office while offering “high flexibility”.
“Our average office attendance over the week is probably mid to high 60 per cent, up to maybe 70 per cent on Tuesday and Wednesday. We don’t have a mandate for minimum days in the office. Everyone is being responsible and mature about it.”
Mr Carmody said the firm last year increased its presence at its London (15 staff), San Francisco (four) and New York (four) offices, with people also working remotely from Madrid, Luxembourg and Berlin.
On the outlook for 2025, Mr Carmody said: “We are targeting growth again, hopefully another 7 or 8 per cent. That’s what’s needed to maintain the scale of the business that’s needed now. The legal services market in Dublin continues to both grow and mature in terms of size and sophistication and we’re competing with London [firms], and international firms in Ireland.
“To be an independent, domestic firm now you have to be able to grow to a scale that delivers the breath of sophistication of services that clients demand, and also to compete for the best staff. You have to continue to grow quite significantly to be able to do both of those things”.
On artificial intelligence (AI), Mr Carmody said it is using AI in a “careful and limited way”, adding that, from an investment point of view, it was “probably a bit too early to plump for one AI application over another because there are constantly new iterations of legal technology products being presented to us”.
“We are running a couple of pilots as to how it can be applied and it’s quite interesting to see some of the output,” he said. “But we don’t input any client information into any external AI platforms. It’s being used judiciously and carefully for generic content that we might produce. At a point in time that will change but at the moment we’re not using it for any client or legal advice use cases. It is definitely something that we anticipate will grow more and more into our business.”
One of the drivers of growth last year was a strong pipeline of advisory work on M&As [mergers and acquisitions]. Transactions included advising WaterWipes on 3i’s €145 million investment and LetsGetChecked on its acquisition of the digital pharmacy platform Truepill.
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The firm said it also advised clients on the “unprecedented volume of legislative change” in the year, with 48 pieces of legislation and more than 700 statutory instruments enacted by government. “No industry was immune from change and supporting clients required extensive cross-firm collaboration to advise across all developments,” it said.
In renewable energy, the firm advised SSE Renewables on its onshore wind joint venture with Bord na Móna, as well as Bord Gáis and Mountside Partners on a dual-fuel generation power station. In financial services, growth was “spurred” by fintech and cryptocurrencies, and it was the sole legal adviser to PTSB on the €348 million sale of a non-performing loan portfolio.
In property, the firm acted for Finglas Regen Ltd on its acquisition of two big residential development sites. In addition, it advised Ires Reit on its strategic sale of 194 houses to a prominent approved housing body. And it acted for BAM Civil Ltd and Dragados Ireland Ltd in Commercial Court litigation in connection with the Barrow Bridge.
The firm’s technology unit acted for Meta and WhatsApp in high-profile regulatory and litigation matters in the EU, and represented numerous big platforms in high-profile regulatory engagements with the European Commission, the Data Protection Commission, and the new Coimisiún na Meán.
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