Adjunct Professors

Adjunct Assistant Professors

Val Corbett, BCL (NUI); LLM (NUI); PhD (Dub); is Head of Programmes at LawSchool.ie. His main teaching interests are in the areas of tort law, contract law, and employment law. He is the author of Tort Law (3rd ed) (Round Hall, 2019) and co-author of Employment Law in Ireland (2nd ed) (Clarus Press, 2022) with Neville Cox and Mark Connaughton. Val leads a Dissertation Group on the School of Law's MSc Finance and Law and also teaches Company & Business Law for the Trinity Business School.

Mr Naoise Gaffney, M.A. (Dub), M.Sc. (Dub), M.Sc (QMUL) is a patent attorney registered to practice before the European Patent Office, the UK Intellectual Property Office, the US Patent and Trademark Office and the Irish Patents Office. He is also a trademark attorney registered to practice before the EU Intellectual Property Office. He is Head of Patent Development at Intellectual Ventures, owner of one of the world’s largest patent portfolios. Prior to this, he spent a number of years in private practice, working for patent law firms in Ireland, Australia and Japan. He is chair of the IP Committee at Ibec, Ireland’s foremost business lobby, and founder of Start-Ed, an educational initiative that organizes free legal workshops for startups and entrepreneurs.

Mr Glen Gibbons, is a Senior Counsel and member of the Inner Bar with significant experience of Intellectual Property and EU law litigation before the Irish courts. He is a graduate of the University of Galway (with degrees in Law and Economics), University of Cambridge (LL.M.) and the Honorable Society of King's Inns. Glen is also the author of Gibbons on Trade Marks Law (3rd ed, Clarus Press).

Mr TP Kennedy, is Director of Education at the Law Society of Ireland. He is also an external examiner for the Institute of Professional Legal Education in Queens University, Belfast. He is a solicitor and before joining the Law Society was a lecturer in law in the University of Leeds and was in private practice for a number of years with one of Ireland’s largest law firms. He has co-written a textbook on European Law for Oxford University Press and contributed articles on issues of international and European law to a variety of legal publications. He is the advisory editor to the Hibernian Law Journal.

Dr Ewa Komorek, LL.B (Warsaw 2002), LL.M (Amsterdam, 2003), PhD (Trinity College Dublin, 2008) lectures four modules on the LL.M programme: International Aviation Law, EU Aviation Law, EU Digital Single Market (Media and content regulation) and Regulation of Cyber-speech. She formerly worked for the European Commission’s DG Competition (Media Unit) and in the EU and Competition Departments of Linklaters and Hammonds law firms in Brussels. She also worked as a consultant in the EU & Competition team of A&L Goodbody Solicitors in Dublin, as well as the research assistant for the Sales Law Review Group in the Irish Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. She was the country correspondent for Ireland for the 2012 update of the 2004 EMR study for the European Parliament entitled “The information of the citizen in the EU: obligations for the media and the Institutions concerning the citizen’s right to be fully and objectively informed”. Her areas of expertise include law of the European Union, media law, human rights, with particular emphasis on freedom of expression, competition law, aviation law and consumer law.

Mr Donald A. MacLean, B.A. in Biological Sciences (University of Delaware), M.B.A. in Corporate Finance (Columbia University), J.D. (Hofstra University), LL.M. (Trinity College Dublin), Attorney at Law (New York). Don was the head of Primary Markets in the Securities and Markets Directorate of the Central Bank of Ireland responsible for the interpretation and implementation of, and compliance with, EU and national legislation and Central Bank of Ireland policy with regard to the prospectus, transparency and short selling regimes. He has twenty years of previous experience at firms in the financial services industry in New York, including Credit Suisse, Credit Agricole, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Sidley Austin LLP.

Mr Barry Mansfield undertook his BCL at University College Dublin and then completed the degree of Barrister-at-law from The Honorable Society of King’s Inns and was called to the Bar of Ireland. He subsequently received his LL.M. from Georgetown University Law Center. He was admitted to the Bar of the State of New York and practised as an attorney with the firm of Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP in both New York and in London. He is currently a practising barrister based in Dublin.

Ms Gráinne Mullan is a practising barrister specialising in the areas of public and constitutional law, extradition and mutual assistance, and human rights law. She lectures Human Rights Law on the LL.M programme. Her research interests are in the areas of human rights law, particularly the law of the European Convention on Human Rights. 

Ms Sarah-Jane O'Brien is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin (Law and French, 2015), the Honorable Society of King’s Inns (Barrister-at-Law, 2016), and Oxford University (MSc Taxation, 2020). In 2020, she was awarded the Irish Tax Institute Hunt Scholarship to complete the Chartered Tax Advisor examinations. She is a practising barrister in the Law Library in Dublin and has taught in the TCD Law School since 2020. For the academic year 2021-2022 she will lecture International Business Tax Law and also lead a Dissertation Group on the LLM programme. Sara-Jane is a committee member of the Irish Society for European Law and a case note editor for the Irish Journal for European Law.

Mr Colin Smith, LL.B. (Dub), M.Litt. (Dub), B.L. Colin Smith is a barrister practising in the field of human rights law. He specialises in asylum and immigration law and in cases involving trafficking in human beings. He has worked in Chambers at the Special Court for Sierra Leone in Freetown and in the War Crimes Division of the Office of the Prosecutor at the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo. He frequently advises government agencies, international organisations and NGOs on human rights and humanitarian law matters.

Dr Rachel Widdis, LL.B (TCD), LL.M. (Human Rights), MBS (UCD), PhD (TCD, 2021), lectures in Business and Human Rights on the LL.M. Formerly worked in Structured Finance in ABN-AMRO Luxembourg, EMEA Business Development in Paris and as a Financial Analyst in Citigroup in London and New York. Rachel's PhD focuses on the development of transnational civil litigation concerning parent company duty of care for adverse impacts on human rights. Recent research includes regulation of Human Rights Due Diligence, and Access to Remedy relating to business and human rights in Ireland.