Gavin Smith

Mr Smith brings with him over 20 years’ experience advising on restructuring, insolvency and complex commercial dispute resolution, most recently as partner and head of insolvency, restructuring and dispute resolution at Walkers Global.

He has significant experience in relation to Irish High Court, Commercial Court and Supreme Court proceedings and other alternative dispute resolution mechanisms such as arbitration and mediation.

His extensive experience includes advising insolvency practitioners, companies and creditors on a range of high-profile, complex, cross-border mandates – both contentious and non-contentious – including security enforcement, receiverships and liquidations, as well as examinerships, schemes of arrangement, and on other formal and informal restructurings and reorganisations.

Mr Smith currently sits on the executive council of Restructuring & Insolvency Ireland (RII), chairing its law reform sub-committee.

Conor Houlihan, DLA Piper partner and head of finance, projects and restructuring in Ireland, said: “We are truly delighted to announce Gavin’s appointment as head of DLA Piper’s restructuring practice in Ireland, further strengthening our finance, projects and restructuring offering in Dublin by adding market-leading restructuring capability.

“We are very fortunate to welcome such an experienced and highly respected practitioner whose skill-set aligns perfectly with our commitment to being a market-leading local team with truly global capabilities and vision.

“Being both local and global is particularly important in the restructuring sphere as Ireland continues to grow as an international restructuring venue. We expect to announce further recruitment to Gavin’s team – and other areas of the finance wider practice – very soon.”

Chris Parker, global co-chair of DLA Piper’s restructuring group, added: “Ireland is becoming a crucial part of the global restructuring market and recruiting Gavin who is well known and highly regarded both in Ireland and internationally will further bolster our position as a leading global law firm, with highly specialist local expertise.

“Given the increasing global nature of restructuring mandates, our Restructuring practice is well positioned to provide clients with first-class sector knowledge and seamless client service through our globally integrated platform.”