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An Interview with Environmental Law Specialist Sinéad Martyn by Emma Bowie
An Interview with Environmental Law Specialist Sinéad Martyn
By Emma Bowie, SF Law
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Sinéad Martyn is a Senior Associate with McCann Fitzgerald, specialising in planning and environmental law. She is also the secretary and treasurer of the Irish Environmental Lawyers Association.
As an undergraduate law student in Trinity, what drew you to the study of environmental law?
I chose environmental law as one of my elective subjects in fourth year. Yvonne Scannell was teaching the module, and she was an excellent lecturer - she made the subject so practical and interesting. Her class size was relatively small, and she really invested a lot of time into her students, meeting us one-to-one to give us feedback on our essays. She has always looked out for her former students as well, who would often give us guest lectures, such as current High Court Judge Garrett Simons… I would say that Yvonne is responsible for the careers of many environmental and planning lawyers in Ireland! Environmental law is also quite a new area of law, especially in Ireland, which I found really interesting as an undergraduate student. On the planning side, the law is quite codified, but there is also a lot of case law. The subject was so different from any of my other modules, and I thought in my final year that it was something which I would like to pursue.
After your initial law degree, you completed a Masters in Philosophy in Environmental
Policy at the University of Cambridge. Why did you decide to pursue a postgraduate degree, rather than beginning your professional training directly after graduation?
I graduated in 2010, which wasn’t a great time for jobs, so that probably influenced my decision to pursue further study. I knew that I didn’t want to do a masters in pure law – personally, I felt like that would have been an extension of my four year degree. While I would have definitely learned something new, I knew that I would not necessarily learn any new analytical skills. Initially, I considered doing a masters in environmental economics, but unfortunately, an undergraduate degree in economics was required to be considered for those courses! I began to research other postgraduate courses which covered environmental economics as well as law, and found that the MPhil in Cambridge had a really broad curriculum. Over the course of the year, I studied economics, planning, sustainable communities, and legal issues relating to land use and tenure issues.
Because there were students on the course from different backgrounds, I got a better sense of the non-legal issues that are associated with environmental law. I think that it is important for anyone considering a career in environmental law to go into the sector with this broader, more holistic understanding, as you are constantly dealing with non-lawyers - ecologists, scientists, developers, activists - people from a range of different backgrounds and interests in a given case or transaction. To be able to understand where everyone is coming from is something which is challenging, and the masters definitely helped in that regard.
Environmental law is a multifaceted area of law which concerns both the private and public sectors - legal experts in this field may work with multinational corporations, government agencies, or in the area of policy research. Why did you decide to pursue a career in corporate law, and what attracted you to working with McCann Fitzgerald? I think that there is a real stability and community that comes with working for a corporate law firm, and that is what drew me to McCann Fitzgerald in particular. I think the concern from an environmental lawyer’s perspective is that if you’re working for a corporate law firm, you’re working for the bad guy – I guess that is how environmen-
Interview Page 44 tal law is portrayed in movies and the media – and that is not the reality! When I started working for McCann Fitzgerald, I had completed my masters in environmental policy. However, I didn’t go in thinking that I would end up working in environmental law - I was also open to working in other areas from the start, such as banking. What drew me to working in corporate law was the idea of working as part of a team. There is a very strong “team” atmosphere in all of the corporate law firms, and that is particularly true for McCann Fitzgerald. They are very nurturing in the way that they bring junior solicitors along, and get you involved in exciting transactions and cases from the very beginning of your training. There is a real sense of community, which I don’t think you get from working independently as a solicitor or barrister. When I started working for McCann, I really sensed that family and community atmosphere from speaking to the more senior lawyers, and I continue to get that sense as a lawyer working there today.
Could you tell us about the aims of the Irish Environmental Lawyers Association (IELA), and your role as secretary and treasurer of this body?
Yvonne Scannell was instrumental in setting up the IELA – her influence has really been far-reaching! What is so valuable about the IELA is that it provides an opportunity to network with other lawyers. Environmental law can be very contentious, and the association provides a neutral ground for lots of people who represent different interests to talk openly about issues and learn about where everyone is coming from – an opportunity you don’t necessarily get when you’re on opposing sides of a courtroom! The ultimate aim is to educate each other on issues of environmental law. It is particularly important in an evolving area of law to be able to share your knowledge and resources. The meetings, which typically feature a lecture or presentation from a guest speaker, are attended by a mix of solicitors and barristers. However, some of the most valuable insights come from our non-law members, such as ecologists, activists, and those working in government policy. I think this is really important, as not only are lawyers exposed to new ideas, but the policy-makers can better understand what the people “on the ground” are experiencing.
In my role as secretary and treasurer, I deal with membership of the IELA as well as finances. The association is run by a volunteer committee, and many senior female partners of the Irish corporate law firms are council members. I think environmental and planning law in Ireland is relatively unique in that quite a few of the senior lawyers in this area are female. If you look at the large law firms in Dublin, the majority of their environmental and planning teams are led by women, and unfortunately that is unusual in law. I have always found that the senior female lawyers are very supportive and encouraging of younger women in this field, as they understand the difficulties which they may experience, particularly in balancing family and work life.
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How does your own work in the corporate sector benefit from your involvement with this collaborative network of environmental lawyers?
It is always valuable to be able to pick up the phone and have a conversation with somebody working in a different area of law - or even outside of law - to educate yourself on areas you may not be familiar with, or to get an objective opinion on something you may be struggling with. It’s helpful for our members to act as a sounding board for each other, especially when a complex piece of legislation is published.
I find that it is always beneficial if you’ve met someone at the IELA before working with them on a contentious case or transaction. It means that you can have a friendly discussion with the other side, and even if the majority of the discussion is frank, I think that it is really important to be able to open and close your conversation with a friendly remark. It’s important for getting jobs done, and also for the mental health of everyone involved. Ultimately as a lawyer, I find it very helpful to pick up the phone to somebody in IELA, to be able to put a face to a name, and have a friendly conversation with somebody that I have previously met. In both contentious and non-contentious matters, I think that having a collaborative network such as the IELA has made me a better lawyer.
In October 2020, the government published the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Bill 2020, which commits Ireland to achieving a carbon-neutral economy and net zero emissions by 2050. In your opinion, what significant challenges and opportunities will the proposed legislation create for Irish businesses?
It is very important that this kind of commitment has been made. The sentiment of the government at the moment seems to be quite pro-climate policy and sustainable communities, which is great. From the actual Bill itself, I don’t think it specifically creates any significant challenges or opportunities, however it is great that it sets more specific goals than its predecessor, the Low Carbon Development Act 2015. What was important about that Act was that it made climate policy a pillar of decision-making for bodies such as the local authorities and An Bord Pleanála. I would hope that this new Bill will make climate policy an even more central and important pillar of decision-making if enacted… It is so great to finally see climate policy on the government agenda, and it is definitely long overdue.
There are a couple of bills at the moment which I’m hoping will have an important knock-on effect on our energy policy too, such as the Marine Planning and Development Management Bill, which we have seen in various forms for almost ten years now. This bill will overhaul the regulatory system for consenting to offshore renewable energy development, such as offshore wind and tidal energy. Given that there is a very unclear consenting regime at the moment to develop anything in the offshore space, this bill will be very important. It was recently updated in January 2021, so it is one that I am definitely keeping a close eye on. I think that these kinds of bills often have more of an impact on climate policy than the climate action-related bills. From my perspective, I would see more of an impact from the more mundane pieces of legislation, such as planning legislation, which has a real impact on building sustainable communities and making sure climate policy is a central pillar of the planning sphere.
