‘ESG grew significantly across all businesses’ MICHAEL JACKSON

Managing Partner Matheson

ACTIVITY 2022 was another year of good growth yet in many ways it was the caricature ‘year of two halves’. As the year progressed and enterprises grew in confidence about the impact of the various challenges they faced, the pace of business picked up significantly and we experienced our busiest final quarter.

In terms of specific practice areas, our Regulatory teams were consistently busy, as were our Commercial Litigation and our Employment teams. Our Corporate M&A team ended 2022 on a real high, working on Horizon’s $28bn acquisition by Amgen Inc.

We also saw continued growth in our Energy practice, and ESG in general grew significantly across all businesses. Our asset management, aircraft finance, structured finance and tax practices also had strong years.

We have continued to invest heavily in our domestic and international footprint, opening new, larger offices in our existing locations in

Cork, London and New York over the last year. We also continue to invest in our people, with a number of senior partner hires into the firm over the past twelve months.

OUTLOOK Unforeseen circumstances apart, I think we will see a period of steady rather than dynamic growth over the course of the year, although that will depend on the specifics of individual sectors. The technology sector will continue to be important growth areas for us, especially in the developing areas of artificial intelligence and digital assets. Increased regulation in this space will also lead to more activity for law firms.

We will also continue to see growth in our Energy practice area, and the topic of ESG will continue to be of interest to clients. The developments in the planning legislation are also likely to result in increased demand for advice. Corporate transactional activity remains strong but we expect to see a growth in demand for restructuring and refinancing advice as the year progresses. Overall, we remain optimistic about 2023.