The Big Interview

Lunch with Jeanne Kelly: Young lawyers have to want to make colleagues wealthier

Over lunch in Roly’s, the Browne Jacobson’s partner talks toxic cultures, the Strong Roots deal and why young female lawyers are right to question their superiors

Jeanne Kelly: ‘You don’t think of it as absurd at the time cause you’re like a lobster in a pot and it’s warming up slowly’

Jeanne Kelly turns sideways in her seat, lifts her glass of Albariño, and does her best pained smile to show me how she would act if the managing partner of a law firm we are talking about was boring.

“Dead sound, genuinely. If he wasn’t, I’d go like this,” she says, making the gesture again.

The co-founding partner of Browne Jacobson’s Dublin office has a contagious laugh and mischief in her eye when she meets ...