James Grennan is a Partner in the Corporate Department and Head of A&L Goodbody’s Insurance Group. His area of particular expertise is the insurance industry. His practice embraces all aspects of insurance law and regulation including the set up and authorisation of insurers, ongoing regulation, the provision of cross-border services, sale and purchase of insurance companies and insurance businesses, captive insurance, authorisation and regulation of insurance intermediaries and statutory compensation schemes. He advises life and non-life insurers, reinsurers, captives and intermediaries.
He played a major role in the A&L Goodbody legal team that advised the Irish Government’s Department of Finance on the drafting of heads of the Bill for the establishment of the Irish Financial Regulator. He was also instrumental in having Irish law amended to facilitate the operations of life assurers in the International Financial Services Centre. He is a member of the insurance regulatory sub committee of An Taoiseach’s (i.e. The Irish Prime Minister’s) International Financial Services Centre group.
He is included in the Euromoney guide to the world’s leading insurance and reinsurance lawyers and in the “Best of the Best” top 25 insurance lawyers in the world. James is also recognised by leading directories such as The Legal 500 and Chambers Europe. He is described as: "absolutely excellent, particularly on the regulatory side", "a top-flight insurance expert....and an affable guy and a great communicator who can explain complex things in the simplest language”, having a "superb reputation" and being "pre-eminent". James is identified as "one of Ireland's best-known insurance lawyers, with a masterful knowledge of his subject" and “has an enquiring mind, and in a parochial market he is a rare commodity: a lawyer with an international outlook”, he is “an accomplished practitioner" and "singled out for his attention to detail”. The international Who’s Who of insurance lawyers has ranked him as Ireland’s leading insurance lawyer. He is also recommended by Best Lawyers 2010 and PLC Which Lawyer? 2010 and 2011, in the area of non-contentious insurance and Who's Who Legal 2010 and 2011.
A graduate of Trinity College Dublin, James qualified as a solicitor in 1988 and became a partner in 1994. He is a former Irish national representative of the Union International des Advocates (International Association of Lawyers) and former President of the Mergers and Acquisitions Commission of that organisation. He is an accredited Mediator. From 1995 to 1999 James managed A&L Goodbody’s London office.