Our People
Paul Glenfield is “highly experienced and commercial”.
Employment: European Legal 500 2011
Paul Glenfield "steers the client through problems with considered, sound, practical advice".
Employment: Chambers Europe 2010
Paul Glenfield is singled out by clients as being"proactive and effective".
Employment: European Legal 500 2010
"Paul Glenfield is the head of the employment group and is able to translate complex problems into succinct advice for his clients."
Employment: Chambers Europe 2009
Recommended as a leading lawyer.
Guide to the World's Leading Labour & Employment Lawyers 2009
"Excellent, commercially minded and practical". Clients find Paul "knowledgeable, available and accessible".
Chambers Europe 2008
Paul Glenfield is "highly responsive".
European Legal 500 2008
Paul Glenfield is"really smart and a good guy to deal with". Clients appreciate his "hands-on approach" and ability to "apply the law to the practicalities of a situation", while peers appreciate the fact that he "sticks to his guns but is a person you can talk to".
Chambers Europe 2007
Paul is also endorsed as a leading lawyer by PLC Cross Border Labour Handbook 2010/2011.
Expertise
Paul is a partner in the Litigation and Dispute Resolution Department and for the last fifteen years has been head of the Employment, Pensions and Benefits Law Group at Matheson Ormsby Prentice.
Paul has specialised in and has extensive experience of advising on all areas of employment and equality law, employers' liability and health and safety at work. He advises on a broad range of contentious issues, such as discrimination, bullying and harassment, stress at work, wrongful and unfair dismissal and redundancies, both individual and collective and industrial relations. He also advises clients on the conduct of internal investigations of disciplinary/bullying and harassment complaints. On the non-contentious side, he advises on all employment issues arising in connection with business acquisitions/re-organisations and transfer of undertakings and the negotiation and drafting of service agreements.
He acts for a wide range of domestic and multinational clients, both in the public and private sectors.
Paul is a member of the Irish Society for Labour Law, the European Employment Lawyers Association, the Irish Health and Safety Lawyers Association and the Incorporated Law Society of Ireland. He has links with the International Labour Law Committee of the American Bar Association and is a former member of the Incorporated Law Society's Employment and Equality Law Committee.
He has co-authored a chapter on Irish Labour Law for a book on International Labour Laws, published by the International Labour Law Committee. For several years he acted as editor of Personnel Policies and Procedures manual, published by Graphite HRM, one of Ireland's leading human resources management consultancies for employers.
Paul is a regular conference speaker on employment and equality law topics. More recently, he lectured at the Centre for Commercial Law Studies in University College Dublin at the end of February 2009, on Workplace Investigations, Law and Best Practice, a lecture he has given for the past four years.
In May 2010, Paul lectured on the Chartered Director course run by the Institute of Directors on employment law issues as they impact on director/board responsibilities. He has also lectured extensively on the topic of age discrimination.
Education
Trinity College, Dublin - Moderatorship in Legal Science
Paul participated in the March 2007 Harvard Business School Leading Professional Service Firm Programme
Highlights
Regulatory Investigations
During his career, Paul has acted in some of the most high-profile cases involving multi-agency regulatory investigations including:
- as advisor to the Irish Amateur Swimming Association in relation to the Murphy enquiry into abuse of young swimmers, both during the enquiry itself and subsequently in connection with implementation of its What Others Say about
- as a member of the team who advised National Irish Bank in the multi-agency investigations of that organisation
- as a member of the team advising GAMA Endustri in relation to allegations of breaches of employment rights legislation, and successfully judicially reviewing an investigation of GAMA
Public Sector Work
- Paul acted as part of the team advising the Department of Transport in the break-up of Aer Rianta, advising on employment/industrial relations issues arising as a consequence of the break up and in the content of the draft legislation. He is currently part of the team advising the Department on the competition to award a facilities management contract for the new Terminal Two, Dublin Airport.
- For a number of years, Paul has been an advisor to the Health and Safety Authority, advising on High Court injunction applications for closure of unsafe work premises / building sites and application of the Code of Practice on the Prevention of Workplace Bullying.
- Paul advises Bord Gáis Éireann and the Electricity Supply Board on a wide range of employment law related issues.
- Paul acted as part of the team advising An Post in the setting up of its major joint venture with Fortis, Postbank and provides general employment law advice to An Post.
Private Sector Work
- Paul acted for Independent Newspapers in one of the seminal cases on constructive dismissal as a result of alleged bullying, taken by a former crime correspondent, Liz Allen, against her former employer.
- He acted for a former State owned financial institution in defending a class action by current/former employees as a result of the integration of their pension entitlements in the mid 1970's.
- He advises Hewlett Packard, Xerox and Aviva on general employment law issues.
