The solicitor Cahir O’Higgins, who was jailed in September for assault and was found guilty on Friday of theft from a former client, is the son of former Fine Gael TDs Michael J O’Higgins and Brigid Hogan-O’Higgins, and nephew of the former chief justice Tom O’Higgins.
O’Higgins (49), who grew up in Galway, trained with the well-known criminal law firm Michael Staines before setting up his own practice, Cahir O’Higgins & Co, in 2005.
He quickly became one of the legal practitioners regularly cited as among the top earners from the criminal legal aid scheme, a fact he alluded to in a Facebook post in September when he was convicted of assault and harassment of a solicitor who had formerly worked in his practice.
“Cahir O’Higgins & Co is closing due to a variety of circumstances,” he wrote. “I feel blessed to have founded and run the largest criminal defence law firm in Ireland (at one point).”
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O’Higgins was jailed for 16 months for the harassment and assault causing harm to fellow solicitor Stephen O’Mahony, whom he repeatedly accused of poaching his clients after O’Mahony left the O’Higgins practice and set up on his own.
The conclusion of the September case was not reported earlier because O’Higgins was awaiting trial on separate charges of stealing from another solicitor’s client whom he stood in to represent when the client was before the court in 2016 and his own solicitor was not present in court.
O’Higgins was found guilty on Friday by a jury of theft and attempting to pervert the course of justice and is to be sentenced later this year.
[ Criminal defence solicitor Cahir O’Higgins convicted over €400 theftOpens in new window ]
Criminal law practitioners who spoke to The Irish Times about O’Higgins said he was known for being unusually focused on getting clients, often going to lengths that were frowned upon by colleagues.
O’Higgins was the subject of a complaint to the Law Society in 2012 after he appeared to take issue with a client who used the services of another solicitor when making a bail application.
The client was a non-Irish national who was before the courts on a serious rape charge (he was subsequently jailed for 12 years) and was being represented by O’Higgins.
An anonymous fax was sent from an internet cafe in Rathmines to the Director of Public Prosecutions saying that the man had previous convictions in another jurisdiction for sexual assault, in what appeared to be an effort to make it less likely the man would be granted bail.
[ Cahir O’Higgins previously jailed for breaking lawyer’s nose in ‘thuggish’ attackOpens in new window ]
Gardaí became involved and CCTV footage from the cafe showed O’Higgins there at the time the fax was sent. A complaint was made to the Law Society of an alleged breach of client confidentiality, but it was decided, following receipt of a substantial submission from O’Higgins, not to forward the complaint to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.
During his years as a successful criminal law solicitor O’Higgins invested in a number of residential properties in Dublin. In more recent years he has appeared to struggle with his practice and with mental health issues, according to lawyers who know him.
In a social media post in September, as he was about to begin his sentence, O’Higgins said: “I’m off to learn a few lessons, write a bit and think about how I’ve lived my life and work at being an expert in kindness and good just for the sake of it for the latter third of my life.”
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