Lavelle looks to future as legal profession breathes again

Michael Lavelle, the well-known Dublin legal eagle and property investor, is preparing to march his newly renamed firm, Lavelle Solicitors, from its current Hatch Street headquarters down the road to a new home on Adelaide Road next month.

The move will bring a physical dimension to the recent parting of the ways between Lavelle and David Coleman, his long-time business partner (until the two fell out), who left Lavelle Coleman to set up his own firm.

Lavelle and Coleman – who spends most of his time in South Africa these days representing sick miners – have put up for sale their plush Hatch Street building, which they developed during the boom for a chunky €20 million or so.

Lavelle told me this week that the shortage of prime office space in Dublin meant the prospect of an acceptable sale price was rising. “I’m pleased about that,” he smiled, with a glint in his eye the size of a six-carat diamond.

Lavelle was keen to stress his firm has put recent events behind it. It specialises in banking, corporate and insolvency work. Lavelle said business was on the up, particularly with the influx of foreign capital into Ireland.

“Things have improved dramatically for medium-sized firms. Irish investors – high net-worth individuals – are also getting back into the market to buy various assets,” he said.

Lavelle said he expected the firm to “naturally grow” as the economy continued to improve. The much-hyped dearth of jobs available for young solicitors was also beginning to “resolve itself”, he reckoned.

They had better order more champers, so . . .