Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC 

Ms Gallagher is a barrister and leading human rights lawyer who has acted in a range of landmark international human rights cases over the last 25 years.

A graduate of University College, Dublin Ms Gallagher obtained a barrister-at-law degree from the Honorable Society of King’s Inns in 2001 and an LLM from Cambridge University in 2002. She was a member of Doughty Street Chambers in London for 20 years. 

She has represented bereaved families of terrorist attacks, advised governments on their obligations to child soldiers, brought test cases on the rights of survivors of gender-based violence and overturned the death penalty for a rapper in Iran.

She is also the leading legal expert on accountability for deaths of journalists and was appointed an expert witness on state obligations in relation to violence against women journalists before the Inter-American court of human rights in Jineth Bedoya Lima v. Cololmbia.

Acting in cases in relation to arbitrary detention she has secured the freedom of 85 wrongly imprisoned journalists, bloggers, cartoonists, business people and activists around the world.

Recent cases have included; leading the legal team for the bereaved family of assassinated Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, for the Palestinian – American journalist Ahmed Shihab Eldin, for Jimmy Lai, the British publisher imprisoned in Hong Kong, for BBC News Persia and Iran journalists targeted extra-territorially by Iran and for Maria Ressa the Nobel Peace Prize winning journalist from the Philippines.

Ms Gallagher is also a member of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission an adjunct professor at University College Dublin and was formerly Ireland’s Special Rapporteur on Child Protection. In 2017 she was made a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts for her “outstanding contribution to the protection of human rights” and in 2023 was awarded the President of Ireland’s Distinguished Service Award. In 2025 she was the Irish Tatler’s International Woman of the Year.

IWLA stated that they are delighted that she will now join the “inspirational IWLA Women Lawyer of the Year alumni”. The award will be presented at the IWLA Gala Dinner on Saturday 7 November.