Rachel
Barry

Rachel’s experience includes:

• representing Rippling in its highly publicised investigation and commercial court case involving a claim relating to corporate espionage and theft of trade secrets, involving Rippling’s competitor Deel, Inc.
• guiding C-suite executives and board members through highly sensitive crisis management scenarios with an employment or industrial relations dimension;
• advising on all aspects of workplace investigations and subsequent processes, including those taking place in safety critical environments, those involving a criminal law dimension and whistleblowing/protected disclosure investigations;
• advising on some of the largest and most complex Irish transactions in recent years in a range of sectors, including advising Pandox AB on the employment aspects of its €1.4 billion recommended cash offer for Dalata Hotel Group plc, advising PTSB on all Irish employment aspects of its €7.6bn acquisition of assets from Natwest Group plc and Ulster Bank and advising an Irish bank the employment aspects of the sale of its entire performing and non performing loan book and related assets and the subsequent closure of its operations;
• advising clients in relation to complex High Court litigation, including defending injunction applications sought by employees to restrain the termination of employment and/or disciplinary action and defending claims for personal injury and occupational illness/stress/bullying and harassment;
• advising on workplace transformation strategies and restructuring, including the establishment of Irish operations, TUPE and outsourcing and collective redundancies;
• advising in relation to the management of industrial relations disputes including picketing, union recognition, claims in respect of terms and conditions, and engagement strategy in the context of organisational change and European law developments;
• advising on all aspects of the establishment and ongoing management of European Works Councils and European Employee Forums, including in relation to litigation concerning UK EWCs on their conversion to Irish law post Brexit;
• advising on complex employment equality issues, with a particular focus on strategic advisory work in the context of complex DEI matters (such as transgender inclusion), where Rachel has a particular understanding of the underlying political landscape and its impact on balancing legal risk;
• advocating in person before the Workplace Relations Commission and the Labour Court;
• advising in relation to misclassification and deemed employment issues;
• advising regulated financial services firms on fitness and probity matters;
• advising clients in the context of investigations and criminal prosecutions brought by the Health and Safety Authority and Workplace Relations Commission;
• advising clients on dealing with data protection issues arising in the employment context, including the defence of data protection actions and dealing with contentious data subject access requests;
• advising clients in relation to all aspects of corporate immigration.

• Admitted as a solicitor in Ireland – 2017
• The Honourable Society of King’s Inns, Advanced Diploma in in Applied Employment Law – 2018
• University College Dublin, Diploma in Arbitration – 2016
• The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), LLM – 2013
• Trinity College Dublin, LLB – 2011