Litigation & Dispute Resolution
Our Litigation and Dispute Resolution team includes solicitors from a number of practice areas including corporate and commercial, employment, insolvency, defamation and media, and healthcare law. We advise clients in a wide range of high value contentious scenarios. We help our clients to resolve their disputes efficiently and effectively to minimise the stress involved.
We are market leaders in the defence of clinical negligence litigation. Our commercial litigation team is recognised for its expertise in handling complex disputes involving significant value, voluminous documents and cross-border, multi-party and multi-jurisdictional issues. We represent financial institutions, banks, state agencies and companies from a wide range of sectors and have distinctive expertise in handling cases before the Commercial Court and Superior Courts.
Hayes has highly experienced and respected mediators and is committed to exploring alternative dispute resolution mechanisms as an alternative to litigation. We are pragmatic and effective negotiators and proactive, cost-conscious case managers.
We are proactive in informing clients of impending legal developments and in assisting them in minimising future legal risks.
Services
Our specialist services include:
- Administrative law, including judicial review
- Debt recovery, acting for foreign clients
- Injunctions
- Licensing - new on/off licences, auctioneers, clubs and restaurants
- Personal injury for both plaintiff and defendant
- Product and public liability
- Professional negligence - medical, legal and veterinary
- Property disputes
- Representing clients in the Commercial Court
- Commercial arbitration and mediation
- Corporate recovery and insolvency
- Corporate criminal offences
- Intellectual property
- Tribunals of inquiry
- Employment law
Experience
Hayes is widely recognised as one of Ireland’s leading litigation firms. Examples of our work include:
- Advising and handling claims for state agencies including NAMA, the State Claims Agency, the Department of Education and Skills
- Representing and advising the Medical Protection Society, a key indemnifier of doctors in Ireland, and Dental Protection, a key indemnifier or dentists in Ireland.
- Representing the UK Special Administrator in a major professional negligence claim against a leading international accounting and business advisory firm.
- Acting on behalf of the defendant in a windfarm construction dispute.
- Representing official Receivers and banks in commercial property disputes.
- Advising and representing the interests of The Irish Times in media and defamation matters.
- Representing Donal Kinsella in his landmark High Court defamation proceedings against Kenmare Resources PLC, resulting in a record €10 million award in his favour. The jury’s decision is subject to a Supreme Court appeal.
What clients say: Litigation & Dispute Resolution
"Each member of the team provides excellent support and advice. Their response times are always excellent."
‘My contact is Joe O’Malley whose experience and instruction is exceptional and always directed me to highly professional individuals within the firm. He is also well connected and put me in touch with financial backers and potential partners. I have recommended him to several other individuals and have no intention of moving from Hayes.’
‘I would work most closely with David Phelan. I have been working with legal firms both in Ireland and abroad for over 30 years. I can say without hesitation, David is the very best that I have worked with in that time. He deals with a wide range of issues across a number of different spectrums all with the same poise and composure. He makes everyone on calls feel like he has nothing else on, only the work that he is working with you on. Clearly we know that this is not the case. He has built a level of trust with me and a number of teams that we work with that allows all of us to have the peace of mind that David is on it. All of that and he’s just a very nice human being.’
‘Joe O’Malley brings with him an enormous wealth of experience across the whole spectrum of commercial litigation.’
‘Jeremy Erwin is a superb litigator with a keen instinct for strategy.’
‘Joe O’Malley is one of the best solicitors in the country, if not the best, due to his commitment to the clients’ interests, work-rate, expertise, and depth of knowledge.’
‘Joseph O’Malley is an excellent litigator, combining an excellent knowledge of the law with a strategic approach to achieving the best possible outcome for clients. Robbie Slattery will always know the case inside out, and has an ability to speak plainly to clients so that complex legal ideas are made easily comprehensible.’
‘David Phelan is an expert in this field and is responsive, wise, pragmatic, an excellent communicator and knowledgeable of the media landscape and of his clients’ needs.
‘David Phelan stands out in contractual and media matters. He has a very solid judgement and a calm approach to problematic situations.’
"Joseph O'Malley is intelligent, commercial and exceptionally hard-working"
"He is a strong team leader and provides commercial advice"
"Joe is excellent at negotiating settlements and dealing with complex matters. He has excellent communication skills, perseverance and judgement"
"He is an excellent legal resource. He is very accessible, which is of great comfort"
‘David Phelan is very commercial in his advice.’
‘Joe O’Malley is brilliant – very clever but also commercial and brilliant to deal with. Robbie Slattery is also a very good member of the team.’
'Joseph O’Malley is highly-intelligent, excellent with clients and extremely hard working – the complete package.'
‘Hayes Solicitors is world class. They are capable of handling complex, cross border litigation matters and are tireless and persuasive litigators. I trust partner Joe O’Malley with large and complex litigation matters.’