Head of Legal, Ireland | BNP Paribas
Nicola Curry
Head of Legal, Ireland | BNP Paribas
What are the key projects that you have been involved in over the past 12 months?
Over the last year, I was invited to join the Advisory committee for transnational leasing at Trinity College. This is being led by Jeff Wool, the Head of the Aviation Working Group, a group of international aviation lawyers. I was asked to contribute as a non-aviation lawyer, working on international contracts and transactions involving real property. We will be hosting our third academic symposium in January 2025, with the School of Law in Trinity.
I was part of a very small group of lawyers who designed and produced a ‘cheat sheet’ for Ireland for Law, promoting the use of Irish Law in international contracts by in-house (and private practice) lawyers. This was launched with a seminar in the Law Society attended by the Minister for Justice, and I asked on a panel about the need for Irish Law to part of the early decision-making process when entering into a transaction with a client. Ireland for Law have asked me to travel with them to New York in September, to continue to promote Ireland as a jurisdiction choice for international contracting and disputes.
This year has also seen huge strides being made with ‘in reach’ – this is the in-house counsel pro bono network that my team and I helped launch with A&L Goodbody and Bank of America and a couple of other in-house colleagues. We now have in-house counsel from over 20 companies, and this summer saw us rolling out a very well-received legal education series to prisoners in Mountjoy and Dochas prisons.
Have you had any experiences during your career as a lawyer that stand out as particularly unique or interesting?
The most interesting part of my job is the variety. From helping to select Board directors, managing a group of ambitious and smart lawyers, structuring international financing transactions, balancing legal risks for a new product, embedding the BNPP culture through our pro bono work or our involvement in our employee resource groups like Parents and Carers to dealing with tricky regulatory questions, no day is ever the same. A memorable example is stepping away from negotiating a multi-million-euro windfarm transaction to urgently review a hand dryer contract for the staff bathrooms – a testament to the diverse responsibilities in-house counsel manage daily.
What do you think are the most important attributes for a modern in-house counsel to possess?
Communication skills. In any hybrid working environment, it is more and more difficult to create and nurture professional relationships. Having the skill to listen and to really understand the issues your clients and stakeholders are facing and communicating your vision and solutions back to them is the most important trait for an effective in-house counsel.
How can general counsel foster a corporate culture that supports ESG principles and compliance across all levels of the organisation?
Lead by example and use your platform to encourage participation and compliance with ESG initiatives, be it a green loan or partaking in an employee resource group.
Based on your experiences in the past year, are there any trends in the legal or business world that you are keeping an eye on, of which you think other in-house lawyers should be mindful?
I would be surprised if anyone answered anything here other than AI! My main concern with AI is the legal skills that may be lost for younger lawyers through reliance on such tools: whilst due diligence or document review and comparisons can be dull, they certainly train the mind and help to build effective drafting and risk awareness skills. This possible loss of hands-on painstaking review work, coupled with the hybrid working model, means that a lot of junior lawyers are forced to work alone or perhaps in a slightly isolated fashion. I rue the demise of the conference calls where each side’s team sat together in a meeting room and pressed mute to collectively analyse the other side’s responses… The very best learning I ever had was watching and listening to real time collective reaction of senior bankers and lawyers in those calls.
What is a cause, business or otherwise, that you are passionate about?
Pro bono for in-house counsel and Ireland as a jurisdiction for international contracts. Personally, education and lifelong supports for people with special needs, especially autistic people and, of course – the promotion of women in law and the workplace generally.