Globalisation is Good for Lawyers says Supreme Court Chief

​The head of the UK’s highest court has said globalisation and joint working practices has united lawyers north and south of the Irish border more than ever before.

Supreme Court President Lord Neuberger was speaking at an historic meeting of the Bar Councils of Northern Ireland and Ireland. It is the first time the two legal bodies have met in formal session in Northern Ireland since the island was partitioned in 1921. Senior lawyers from Ireland, England, Scotland, South Africa and the USA were all present at the event at the Royal Courts of Justice in Belfast at the weekend.

Lord Neuberger said the growth of cross border business and increasing internationalisation of solicitors’ firms and barristers had made “a lawyers life more complex, but more exciting”. “There is an increasing number of international arrangements - cross border insolvency treaties, double taxation agreements and harmonisation of patent law, to take three commercial examples, as well as international criminal conventions. Multinational and even national companies manifest an increasing desire for advice on more than one country, often more than one continent.”

Click here to read the full speech by Lord Neuberger