Our Story – About McCarthy + Co. Solicitors LLP

We provide a nationwide service in personal injury and medical negligence claims through offices in Dublin and Cork. We’re a family run legal business with over 30 years’ experience specialising in a few niche areas in which we provide excellent legal advice, assistance and service to clients whom we value for the long haul.

A Family Business.

We were founded by Ann McCarthy over 30 years ago and her sons Flor and John now run the business. And while the McCarthy + Co LLP family now extends to far more than just McCarthy’s, the family ethos is still central to how we operate.

But more than just a business run by a family, we are a business who sees itself as a family, both the people working in it and the wider client family that we have served over the last 30 years; our client family is the whole reason for our existence, it’s what keeps us in business.

We see long, mutually beneficial relationships with our clients as the cornerstone of our business. We have no interest in the fast buck or selling a product or service to a client just to turn a fee if it isn’t right for you in the first place. And this isn’t us being all noble, this is in our rational self-interest. Our business depends entirely on trust. You must trust us and we must trust you; just as members of a family would trust one another.

An important part of that trust is that we won’t try to sell you services we don’t think you genuinely need. But the corollary of this is that if we do believe that something is beneficial or advisable, we believe that it is our duty to make sure that you are aware of it. For instance, we believe every client should make a will and should review and, if necessary, update it regularly. We don’t make any apologies for reminding you about things like this, we see that as part of our duty as your solicitor.

The relationship with each of our clients is something that we look upon as a long term one from the very beginning and everything that we do is driven by this philosophy.

A Specialist Business.

As well as being a family business, we are a niche business. Rather than try to be all things to all men, we have chosen to specialise in what we do.

John specialises in high value personal injury and medical negligence cases.

Flor specialises in law for business (mainly commercial property, commercial litigation and general commercial advisory work) as well as probate and estate planning. Given his special insight in owning and operating a family business, Flor is particularly well placed to help other family business owners.

Clíodhna and Liam provide the general support that our litigation and business clients need in every other aspect of their lives, such as buying and selling property, making sure you have wills to protect you and to just be there to help you to deal with the wide variety of legal issues you may encounter from time to time.

Our Cases.

As a small niche business we have to focus on how and where we spend our time, we can’t do everything and we can’t take on every case. If we are unable to take your case or we believe that we are not the best people to deal with your particular legal problem, we will tell you as soon as we become aware of it and we will help you find an appropriate alternative. Because we must concentrate on high-value work to be in a position to remain in business, we can’t always take on every case cost-effectively.

For instance in personal injury and medical negligence litigation cases we can only take cases which have a high value, it is clear that someone else is at fault and the person at fault or their insurance company is likely to be able to pay.

If we are unable to take your case because it does not come within this criteria, please understand that this is not personal. We turn away many more cases than we actually take on.

Because of our size and our specialist nature, we are a very busy practice. We have to manage our time very carefully in order to be able to attend to your business effectively and in good time. Therefore, we can only see you by appointment and we can only guarantee to be able to take scheduled or pre-arranged phone calls. If you call and we are unable to take your call, we will arrange to call you back at a scheduled time that is convenient for you.

We work like this is to ensure that your business gets done to the very high standards that we set for ourselves. The high-value specialist work that we have chosen to focus on requires a very high level of care and attention to detail. We cannot deliver this standard of work if we continually interrupt what we are doing. It’s not because we don’t want to make ourselves available, it’s just a fact of life if you want your legal business done properly and well, and we wouldn’t be happy doing anything else for you.

Our Systems for Your Peace of Mind.

We believe in making continuous improvements to the way we work. For this reason, we have been working over many years to establish systems in our business that improve the way we deliver service for you. We have a completely integrated office-wide practice management software system called Legal Evolve. Everyone in the office works via Legal Evolve and all client casework is done through the system. This gives us a very clear picture of what has been done by everyone at every stage of every case. We work very closely with Legal Evolve in the development of their software to make it better in the way it enables us to deliver the service you need from us.

Our Risk Management Audit Standard.

As well as using IT systems to ensure your business is done properly, safely and securely, we operate to a very high independently audited standard in how we do every aspect of the work we do for you. For many years we have been accredited as part of an independent risk management audit standard, currently, the Q9000 Standard accredited by the Institute of Legal Research and Standards in Ireland. In 2012 and 2013 we achieved the coveted Gold Standard which requires a mark of over 90% on audit and we hold the highest grade at the highest standard currently available in the legal profession in Ireland.

This risk management audit is primarily concerned with making sure that the high-risk aspects of our business are properly managed, to make sure that things such as the statute of limitation dates are properly monitored, undertakings given to lending institutions are properly recorded and monitored and that files are peer-reviewed regularly. But we take these standards much further than the basic risk management requirement and apply this systematic approach to every aspect of what we do. That is why we have achieved the Gold Standard.

Why do we do it? So that you can have peace of mind and be assured that everything that we do for you is done properly, as it should be when it should be; without you having to think about it.

If you give us your trust by instructing us as your solicitors. We take that trust very seriously and so we go to a lot of trouble to ensure that your trust in us will never be misplaced.