Transparency, oversight and accountability
Managing our business responsibly is core to how we operate. We work to be fully transparent with our stakeholders – clients, employees, and industry and community partners.
Strong oversight and true accountability also underpin our working culture. These principles shape how our firm makes decisions, manages risk and upholds integrity.
To ensure our impact extends beyond our walls, we embed sustainability into our sourcing practices. We work closely with our suppliers to ensure our values are reflected throughout our supply chain.
To support our clients’ sustainability goals, we share insights, collaborate on ESG initiatives and help root responsible practices across the wider business ecosystem.
Leading on sustainability
“Being a responsible business is not merely a principle we uphold – it’s the foundation of how we lead. Our leadership team is deeply committed to embedding ESG and sustainability throughout our operations, guided by our shared values and ethical standards.
Through strong governance, transparency and accountability, we ensure our decisions reflect integrity and long-term thinking. And by working closely with our clients, suppliers and communities, we help shape a more sustainable, inclusive future for all.”
Ross Moore
Partner for Responsible Business & Pro Bono and Head of Energy, Infrastructure & Natural Resources
How we govern ourselves
Responsible business and pro bono work are vitally important to us at ALG, meaning our senior leadership team directly oversees these areas.
Sinéad Smith, our Head of Responsible Business and Eithne Lynch, our Head of Pro Bono direct the development and delivery of our strategy and goals on these fronts, always ensuring our approach evolves as needed in a fast-moving business environment.
Ross Moore, our Responsible Business and Pro Bono Partner, gives strategic feedback and liaises between the Responsible Business and Pro Bono teams and the wider partnership.
Strategic decisions are subject to approval by the Management Committee, while our broader policy direction is reviewed through the Chair at partner meetings.
Our Responsible Business team
Our Pro Bono team
How we hold ourselves accountable
Delivering meaningful impact demands transparency, integrity and a willingness to hold ourselves to the highest standards. We’re determined to show in practice how accountability is central to our commitment to being a responsible business.
Committing to UN Global Compact and Sustainable Development Goals
The Compact aims to foster collaborative action to help achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – ALG is one of 75 signatories in Ireland.
Our Responsible Business strategy aligns us to both the Compact and the SDGs. They serve as a framework to guide our actions across environmental, social and governance (ESG) priorities. We focus on the SDGs where we can have most impact.
Our approach to how we operate, advise our clients and contribute to society is anchored in the SDGs and reflected through initiatives such as:
- our DARE gender equality programme
- diversity and inclusion
- pro bono and community partnerships
- responsible procurement practices
- our commitment to climate action
Accountability on progress
Benchmarking our progress against recognised frameworks, external scrutiny and industry peers is vital to our accountability standards. It ensures transparency and credibility by helping us measure what matters, identifying how we can improve and ensuring we continually do.
“Accountability and external validation play a vital role in being a responsible business. By engaging with recognised standards and collaborative commitments, we’re able to test our progress, challenge our assumptions and stay aligned with the expectations of our people, clients and communities.
That’s why we’ve committed to accreditations like the Business Working Responsibly Mark, the Silver Diversity Mark in Dublin and the BITC NI Environmental Benchmarking survey in Belfast. We’re also proud signatories of the UN Global Compact, the Elevate Pledge and the Pro Bono Pledge”.
Sinéad Smith
Head of Responsible Business
Governance
Business Working Responsibly Mark
Human rights
Pro Bono Pledge Ireland
Workplace
Business in the Community Elevate Pledge
Silver Diversity Mark, Irish Centre for Diversity (Dublin)
People Insights survey
Environment
Science-based targets
BITCNI Environmental Benchmarking Survey – Gold mark achieved 2024 (Belfast)
ISO 14001
ISO 50001
Managing risk together
Risk management and compliance is core to our operations. Our guiding principle is that each member of the firm owns risk, with our Risk and Compliance team guiding and supporting us.
Our General Counsel, Paula Mullooly leads our Risk and Compliance team. She reports directly to David Widger, our Managing Partner, and works with him to develop the team’s annual strategic risk priorities.
The team works to identify potential risks, and develop mitigation strategies and policies. This best-in-class collaborative approach to responsible and comprehensive risk management protects our firm and our clients.
Ethical conduct and risk
Each person at ALG understands the vital importance of complying with our standards of professional conduct. Our Employee Handbook and our policies set out our expectations of every employee and serve as a reminder of our collaborative and ethically-minded cultural approach.
We have an open-door policy where everyone is available to provide guidance or act as a sounding board where needed.
Across the board, we work to foster a culture of speaking up, whether that’s to line managers, partners or to other senior people such as our General Counsel who listens and advises without judgement.
When issues or risks are identified, we seek to learn from them and to incorporate those learnings in our policies.
And of course, our whistleblowing policy encourages our people to report any conduct that might be unethical, dishonest, dangerous or in breach of any of our policies or regulatory obligations.
Constant learning and evolution are key to our approach to risk. To ensure everyone at the firm understands and follows our handbook and policies as a natural part of their daily work, we regularly:
- hold training on policies for employees at all levels
- gather feedback on and iterate our policies
- review our policies to understand compliance and sticking points
- carry out compliance audits
- seek input from independent experts, especially on information security
Ethics and risk policies
- whistleblowing
- anti-money laundering
- lobbying
- anti-bribery and corruption
- anti-slavery
- information security and acceptable use of IT
- market abuse and data protection
Ensuring information security
Since 2017 our firm has been accredited to the globally recognised standard for information security management, ISO27001. It gives assurance that we’ve the right oversight of all our information security controls.
Our dedicated information security officer and our IT team work to ensure our security arrangements are fine-tuned to keep pace with evolving security threats, vulnerabilities and business conditions.
Knowledge-driven excellence
Our knowledge management function is a strategic and practical enabler of how we work responsibly. From supporting excellent client service and effective risk management to driving a culture of collaboration, continual learning and wellbeing, knowledge at ALG underpins how we work.
Our knowledge team also supports the firm’s risk management approach by embedding consistency and quality across legal delivery. By creating and maintaining quality precedents, practice notes and knowledge tools, our knowledge team ensures our lawyers work from a shared foundation of best practice.
By providing clear guidance and trusted starting points and by granting access to shared expertise, the knowledge team helps to reduce day-to-day pressure and promote confident and effective working practices.
Inclusive knowledge-sharing practices within our firm also mean better client outcomes. By drawing on extensive expertise, our people can develop more innovative solutions to clients’ complex problems.
Knowledge-sharing to support ESG (2022)
When our firm needed a more structured approach to capturing and sharing our ESG expertise, the knowledge team designed and delivered the ESG Knowledge Hub and the ESG Knowledge Drive. This project directly supported the firm in converting ESG expertise into shared value.
On Board (2023)
We developed a dedicated platform for key clients and their boards, called On Board. It provides curated know-how and insight for boards and their legal advisors on issues such as ESG for corporates, gender balance on boards and sustainability reporting, along with a podcast series featuring our partner alumni.
Pro Bono Knowledge Portal (2024)
Our knowledge team worked with our pro bono team to develop our Pro Bono Knowledge Portal to support hundreds of our colleagues who work on pro bono matters. It’s a centralised hub where they can access precedents, legislation, case law and practice management guidelines unique to this human rights work.
Labour and human rights
Along with empowering and supporting our own people, we also work to advance broader labour and human rights through our pro bono work and our supplier policies.
Engaging with our suppliers
Our Responsible Procurement and Vendor Management policy (created in 2024) ensures we consider the ESG impact of our supplier choices through vendor due diligence. Our suppliers should comply with:
- our supplier code of conduct, which sets out how we expect our suppliers to be fair, honest and respectful in all their dealings
- our modern slavery statement, which outlines how we work to ensure human rights are universally respected across our business and supply chain
- the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights
- the International Labour Organisation’s standards on child labour and minimum age
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