Paula Reid Partner, Knowledge
Welcome to our Annual Knowledge Report for 2024. This is the ninth year that the ALG Knowledge team has published its report looking at the year’s key legal developments and those in the pipeline. For the first time, the Report has been produced as a digital publication, which we hope will optimise the user experience.
This year’s Report contains insight pieces from our Knowledge Lawyers covering a broad range of legal topics, including asset management and investment funds, data protection, finance, financial regulation, corporate, ESG, employment, litigation, planning and environmental, and real estate.
Our sense is that, while 2024 has not been quite as dense as 2023 in terms of the scale of legal and regulatory change, it has nonetheless been a busy year, with developments across several practice areas. As you might expect, there are some overarching themes, including:
- a focus on the social aspects of ESG in employment law
- a continuing spotlight on governance from a range of sources
- a creep of regulatory oversight in the financial sector
- an expansion of the EU’s network of technology regulation
This year's Report includes an article by Dr Vincent Power, partner in the firm’s EU, Competition & Procurement Group. Vincent reflects on a busy year in the competition law space, touching on some particularly noteworthy developments and what they could mean for the year ahead.
The Report also features an article by Celine Kelly, our Knowledge & Client Solutions Manager, in which she provides insights on how the power of knowledge management can be deployed in legal teams. Ann O’Sullivan, our Knowledge Services Manager, has contributed a timely article explaining the impact of the General Election on the legislative process.
The Report is laid out in three sections:
- ‘2024 at a glance' highlights the key themes of the past year.
- This is followed by a review of the year’s legal developments.
- We finish with a brief ‘looking ahead’ to developments on the horizon.
An audio version of each chapter in the Report is also available.
ALG client offering
ON BOARD
In 2022, we launched On Board at our Annual Knowledge Seminar. On Board is a repository of legal guidance for company directors, as well as their legal advisors, covering a broad range of governance themes. Topics covered include conflicts of interest, fiduciary obligations, and emerging responsibilities under ESG rules. On Board also features Board Series, our video series of fireside chats and interviews with ALG partners sharing their practical experience of advising boards on a range of business issues. On Board won the accolade of Best Client Support at the Managing Partner Forum Awards in London in June in 2023 and was also shortlisted in the category of ‘Best client service initiative’ for The Lawyer European Awards 2023.
At our annual Knowledge Seminar 2024, we launched a new offering within On Board – the Director’s Cut. This is a podcast series centred on capturing the practical experiences and insights of company directors. In the first four episodes of this series, Paula Reid caught up with former ALG partners, Brian McDermott, Eithne FitzGerald, Barbara Cotter and Catherine Duffy, who, since finishing with the firm, have served on company boards. These episodes run to just over two hours and qualify for General CPD (Legal).
ONLINE KNOWLEDGE AND LEARNING
KnowledgePlus is our online knowledge and e-learning extranet for ALG clients. It will provide you with thought leadership, expert opinion and spotlight coverage of key areas of significant impact for your legal team and business. It also features case studies of how our Knowledge team has worked with client legal teams to develop bespoke knowledge management solutions. Access is available exclusively to ALG clients. To register for KnowledgePlus, please email your details to knowledge@algoodbody.com.
We encourage our clients to engage with our team and to make use of our knowledge offerings, which can be reviewed in detail under the Client Knowledge Services section of this Report.