Seán Guerin SC elected as forthcoming Bar Council Chair

• Forthcoming Chair will assume responsibilities from September 2024
• The Council of The Bar of Ireland elects new Chair to lead its 2,100-strong members

Seán Guerin SC is a native of Wexford town with a strong family connection to County Clare. Educated at St. Peter’s College Wexford and St. Andrew’s College, Dublin, he studied law at University College Dublin and Université de Nancy II (France) and qualified as a barrister at the Honourable Society of King’s Inns Dublin and was called to the Bar in 1997. He has postgraduate qualifications in law from UCD (commercial law) and King’s College London (European law). He has been in practice at the Bar of Ireland since 1998 and was called to the Inner Bar and appointed Senior Counsel in 2013.

Seán is based at the Law Library in Dublin, and practices mainly in public law, including criminal, regulatory and administrative law. He has served for many years on the Professional Practices Committee of the Bar Council and has been Chair of the Criminal State Bar Committee since 2022.

On his election, Seán Guerin SC, said:

“It is a great honour to be elected as Chair of the Council of the Bar of Ireland.

The legal history of this State, in the hundred years since the enactment of the Courts of Justice Act 1924, has been characterised not just by an independent judiciary but by an independent referral Bar, with a proud record of providing the very highest standards of written and oral advocacy and advice to every client, regardless of personal interest or opinion.

The values of integrity, ceaseless diligence, fearless representation, and excellence which created and sustain that record will continue to guide the Bar through the current changing legal environment. In a profession faced with significant structural and technological change and social, political, and economic pressures, there is a heavy onus on the Bar Council to articulate those values and to communicate the continuing importance of the profession of barrister to the maintenance of the rule of law and the protection of human rights. The Bar Council must also convey the attractions of that profession to talented young people, whatever their background, who aspire to share those values in a rewarding professional career.

I am grateful to my colleagues for placing their confidence in me to make that case on behalf of the Bar of Ireland and I look forward to working with the members of the Bar Council and the wider profession, as well as all who care about the quality of justice in this country.

I also want to express my gratitude to Sara Phelan SC, whose leadership of the Bar Council over the last two years has been an immense service both to the profession and the public interest.”