“Philip Lee fields one of the strongest public sector competition records in the market, with clients highlighting its procurement expertise as ‘the best in Dublin’.” – Legal 500

"Philip Lee Solicitors scores points for being ‘very knowledgeable in public service contracts as well as corporate issues’ and lawyers are ‘very efficient’." – Legal 500

Our lawyers are public law specialists with first rate qualifications, knowledge and experience and an impressive body of public sector clients. Philip Lee stands out among Irish law firms because our Dublin-based team is well supported by our Brussels office. As experts in EU and state aid law, we have an excellent working relationship with officials in the European Commission and other EU institutions. Irish clients have found our interventions and advice extremely useful as a result.

Our public law practice advises both the public sector and clients dealing with public bodies. The practice also advises other teams within Philip Lee on public and administrative law aspects of transactions, negotiations, regulation, appeals and judicial review. Our team comprises individuals with market leading expertise in:

• public administrative law;
• regulatory impact analysis, strategic environmental assessment and consultations;
• civil and criminal litigation;
• freedom of and access to information; 
• Constitutional law;
• European Convention on Human Rights law; and 
• EU regulatory requirements under Data Protection and Privacy legislation. 

The synergy of this expertise allows us to advise public sector clients at any level.

What we strongly believe is that the quality of legal advice received by any public authority ultimately goes to the very core of their decision making process and the ability of that body to stand by those decisions. By delivering practical and pragmatic solutions to the legal issues faced by an authority we can help make an important contribution to their functioning more effectively.

In our experience of advising public bodies, we frequently find that as the authority becomes increasingly familiar with the scope and extent of its framework legislative provisions, it begins to recognise lacunas or deficiencies in the legislation. To that end, we have advised numerous public bodies on draft amendments to legislation - including drafting supplemental legislation and on the implementation of statutory instruments under the primary legislation.

By developing a thorough understanding of the basic legislation of any public body that we represent, we can quickly identify the parameters of its vires. Coupling this with our knowledge of their statutory enforcement mechanisms allows us to deftly steer public bodies through the maze of case law and legal principles that affect their remit.