PILA Team
Larry Donnelly - PILA Manager
Larry is a Boston born and educated attorney who holds American and Irish passports. Before joining PILA, he was Lecturer & Director of Clinical Legal Education in the School of Law at the National University of Ireland, Galway. At NUI Galway, Larry taught practical legal skills to undergraduate and postgraduate law students and established the School of Law's Clinical Legal Education programme, the largest of its kind in Ireland and a 2009 finalist for the MacJannet Prize for Global Citizenship, which recognises exceptional student civic engagement activities in universities around the world. He has published law review articles on legal education and comparative law. In addition to practising law, Larry was active in government and politics in his native Massachusetts before relocating to Ireland and now comments regularly on politics and current affairs in the Irish print and broadcast media. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA and a Juris Doctor degree from Suffolk University Law School in Boston, MA.
Maeve Regan - Legal Officer
Maeve joined PILA in December 2011. She is a solicitor, lecturer and author with a speciality in employment and equality law. Maeve has been a member of PILA since 2010 and carried out work, in tandem with a barrister, on a forced labour issue for a migrant rights NGO. Maeve trained with Arthur Cox and upon qualification worked with the Arthur Cox Employment Law Group. On secondment from Arthur Cox, Maeve worked with Herbert Smith, London and in the international legal department of Schering-Plough in New Jersey. She is a consultant to the Law Society's Diploma in Employment Law and is the course tutor on the Law Society's Certificate in Employment Law Advocacy. Maeve is also the Editor and co-author of Employment Law (Bloomsbury Professional, 2009), which she co-authored with 22 leading employment, pension and tax lawyers. In 2011, Maeve worked as a solicitor with Northside Community Law Centre, advising on employment and equality law and social welfare law. Maeve continues to volunteer with the Centre.
Lianne Murphy - Project Officer
Lianne has a BA in History and Politics from UCD and a LLM in International Human Rights Law from the Irish Centre for Human Rights, NUI Galway. On completing the LLM Lianne interned in Human Rights Law Network in Delhi, India where she wrote a research piece on fair trial rights in the Indian criminal justice system and worked with the Women's Rights unit. She then completed an internship in FLAC where she worked on FLAC's campaign to restore universal child benefit and also worked as an assistant to the Director. Prior to joining PILA Lianne was Advocacy Officer in Amnesty International Ireland, working on lobbying and researching areas in Amnesty's advocacy programme on domestic issues, including trafficking in human beings, violence against women, refugee rights, and children's rights. She also worked on Amnesty's human rights based approach initiative.
Kim Watts - Legal Information & Communications Officer
Kim is a New Zealand qualified lawyer who practised for 3 years in Auckland at Russell McVeagh and Simpson Grierson in litigation, competition law and consumer rights law. She has a BA/LLB and LLM in Commercial Law from the University of Auckland. Kim was a regular participant in Russell McVeagh's long-running pro bono partnership programme with the Mangere Community Law Centre in Auckland. Kim moved to Ireland in 2010 and worked at the Competition Authority implementing EU policy into Irish law and undertaking legal research before her appointment to the PILA Team.