Stephen Holst

Newly qualified lawyers were entering a profession gripped by uncertainty in an Ireland faced by economic turbulence. However, there emerged from that singular event a generation of practitioners who were shaped by resilience, adaptability and commercial awareness.

One was Stephen Holst, who began his second three-year term as managing partner at McCann FitzGerald LLP this month. The then recent graduate of UCD had joined the Dublin-based firm in 2007 when news broke of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, which led to a domino effect that triggered a global financial crisis and a loss of some $10 trillion in worldwide economic output.

“We saw the initial shocks in Ireland around the banks and events happened quite quickly over a period of 18 months to three years,” Mr Holst recalls. “It was a challenging time but I was fortunate to be working with great partners, seeing and hearing what they and their clients were going through.

“The nature of a crisis means that young, trainee solicitors tend to get more responsibility quickly and these experiences pay off later.”

The interim years saw Mr Holst gain experience as a strategic adviser in client organisations, guiding them on the people aspects of their significant corporate transactions, organisational change and most critical disputes and acquiring a reputation for his skills in whistleblowing and investigations into protected disclosures and white-collar crime.

He became a partner at McCann FitzGerald in 2017 focusing on the employment and industrial relations aspects of M&A, outsourcings, procurement and restructurings and  has been with the venerable firm throughout his career.

“Over the course of my traineeship we were still at the tail end of what was described as the Celtic Tiger economy, and over the next year and a half, we saw the whole world change,” he says.

NAMA (The National Asset Management Agency) was established in 2009 during the Irish banking crisis and Mr Holst cut his teeth with the first loan portfolios going into the agency.

He moved into property then employment law at the end of his traineeship. “The employment market was seeing serious dislocation and I was thrust into quite challenging situations – which is where you want to be as a lawyer, because you learn the most in such situations.”

“I went back into property for a few months, and it very much reflected the wider environment – you stepped in wherever the need was greatest and took on whatever work was required.

Returning to the employment practice area, he describes it as a useful window through which to view changes in the wider economic landscape.

“In the initial phases, it involved disputes and advisory work around redundancy programmes and all the unfortunate things that are a necessary part of a recession. But then seeing the emergence of recovery it meant being a part of some of the biggest transactions in the Irish economy.”

These included the sale of Bord Gais Eireann, the people aspects of Canadian life insurer Great-West Lifeco’s takeover of state-rescued insurer Irish Life for €1.3 billion and McCann FitzGerald’s role in advising Aer Lingus on the restructuring of its pension scheme which ultimately led to the airline’s sale to IAG.

“So many business decisions originate and end with people,” he stresses.  “We as a firm are an incredibly collaborative environment and as an employment lawyer, and with employment issues coming up everywhere, I’ve worked with every partner in the firm at different times.”

Mr Holst believes the firm’s international strategy and relationships have been a core pillar of its success with offices in London, New York and Brussels. “We have a new colleague working on the west coast of the US as well though we don’t yet have a formal office there.

“As a leading independent firm, the strength of our practice is driven by several things, including our clients in Ireland but also in these relationships with our contacts in other law firms  internationally, knowing the best firms in each jurisdiction and developing meaningful relationships with each of them,” he says.

In 2021, McCann FitzGerald became the sixth of Ireland’s so called ‘Big Seven’ law firms to adopt a limited liability partnership (LLP) structure. The firm now has 101 partners and over 550 legal and business services professionals.

“Our culture as a firm and as a partnership is fundamental to who we are,” says Mr Holst.  “It’s not just something we pay lip service to – the reason so many of our partners are ‘lifers’ (40 per cent of its staff have been with the firm for more than 10 years) is because it’s a fantastic place to work and aligning that change with our culture was really important; what is embedded in the partnership is also embedded within the firm.

“We believe that by having a collaborative culture and taking a long-term view of people, you get the best out of them.

“Supporting them when times are difficult and then celebrating them when they excel – as they as they inevitably do – is all about the team ethos, making sure the right person is doing the right job, involving your colleagues where you need to and then being happy to help when they ask for help.

“That’s certainly why I’ve stayed and explains that why when I became a partner, four of the six of who were made partners together had been part of the same trainee intake.”

Mr Holst also has an impressive academic CV: in addition to his BCL from UCD, a year at DePaul University in Chicago and qualifying as a solicitor at the Law Society of Ireland he gained an advanced diploma in Corporate, White Collar and Regulatory Crime at King’s Inns, became an AITI Chartered Tax Adviser and attended courses at Oxford Saïd and Harvard.

He also co-authored the chapter on Ireland in the International Comparative Legal Guide to Employment & Labour Law 2018 published by the Global Legal Group.

What impels him to keep studying? Mr Holst smiles. “What I always say to our newest graduates and trainees is that to succeed as a lawyer you must remain curious. Nothing remains static and it’s vital to constantly learn new skills.

“Personally, having learned the lessons of recession I believe you can’t be monolithic in your approach to practice; you must have several strings to your bow. Much of the joy of being in a job like this is learning and while I only spent a week in Harvard it was a privilege and incredibly interesting – and these are experiences that you bring back and give back to the firm.

“Frankly, you learn the most from working with people, so I learn every day and get a great buzz out of that.”

As he begins his second term as managing partner, Mr Holst is clearly optimistic that the prospects for McCann FitzGerald are positive and there have been several major deals underpinning that sanguine opinion, including the firm having advised SMBC Aviation Capital on its acquisition of Air Lease Corporation and AIB on its €1.2bn directed share buyback from the Irish Minister for Finance.

“As a firm, we’re always looking at the opportunities that are out there. At its core, it’s about doing the best work for our clients,” he says.

Recent accolades include McCann FitzGerald being named this month as Ireland Intellectual Property (IP) Transactions & Advisory Firm of the Year at the Managing IP Awards EMEA 2026.

The award recognises the firm’s position in IP transactions and advisory work, reflecting its role in advising on several complex, high‑value transactions which involved significant IP elements.

“In the last year, we’ve also made five lateral partners, bringing in one from a US firm in Dublin, a partner from a US firm in London and three other partners from two of our domestic competitors, says Mr Holst.  

“Being independent remains a core part of our strategy. As the leading firm in our jurisdiction, it’s something our clients value and trust and I think we’ve seen the fruits of that over the past 12 months.”