David Smythe

David is the firm’s General Counsel and a member of the senior Management Team.

David trained and qualified as a solicitor with this firm. Before he joined the senior Management Team, he was a partner in the Dispute Resolution Department for many years. He handled a broad range of contentious matters for a wide range of domestic and foreign clients, including individuals, businesses, organisations and government entities.

David’s diverse practice has given him experience of: business litigation; investment disputes; international asset tracing exercises; civil fraud cases; partnership and boardroom disputes; directors disqualification proceedings; company, regulatory and tax investigations; professional disciplinary proceedings; defamation actions; media law cases; official secrecy cases; judicial review proceedings; public enquiries; inquests; criminal litigation; ‘death row’ cases; and government to government international mutual assistance requests.

Many of David’s cases had an international aspect to them, a number of them were widely reported in the media here and abroad, and some of them are reported in law reports. In a profession where specialisation is now the norm, the breadth of his experience and the versatility it has given him is unusual. His experience and versatility make him ideally suited to be the General Counsel in a firm which has the diversity of practice areas and the stellar reputation for all forms of litigation which this firm has.

As General Counsel and a member of the Management Team, David’s responsibilities now focus on firm management and service delivery to clients. His firm management role takes in governance, legal services regulation, compliance and risk management, as well as general business management. In his service delivery role he advises, guides and supports all the firm’s practice areas, partners and lawyers in respect of their legal work for clients.