U.K. lawyers seeking solace in Ireland

While last week’s Brexit vote took markets and bookmakers by surprise, a steady stream of the U.K.’s antitrust lawyers had prepared for the worst by seeking professional solace in Ireland.

For Madeleine Healy, a competition lawyer at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Brussels, it was a “natural choice” to register as an Irish solicitor in case a British divorce from the European Union took away her hard-earned rights to practice EU law.

“I’m just not taking any chances,” said Healy, 33. “It’s very difficult to qualify as a solicitor and I’m not willing to just give it up because the U.K. decides to vote out of the EU and potentially out of free movement of professionals.”

Ireland’s Law Society said last week that a record 186 solicitors from the U.K. were admitted to practice in Ireland in the first six months of the year, most of them citing a possible Brexit and many of them specializing in EU and competition law. It got more than 40 initial queries from U.K. solicitors since the results of the British referendum became known Friday. Only 51 U.K. solicitors sought to register in Ireland in 2014.

Doing so has until now been “very easy,” said Healy, as long as lawyers have the needed certificates, the references and pay a fee of about 300 euros (US$332). “I think it took me less than a month to do.” A handful of trial lawyers, known as barristers, have made the switch, according to the Irish Bar.

An EU without the U. K. risks stokes fears British lawyers might lose the ability to defend clients at the bloc’s courts in Luxembourg.

“Privilege is afforded to lawyers of an EU bar or EU law society,” Healy said. It’s unclear if, post- Brexit, British lawyers would be covered by the EU’s professional services directive or free movement of professionals, which “raises question marks over whether or not we would have privilege.”