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GAZETTE
N E W S
JULY 1996
The New Judges of
the Circuit Court
Eight new judges of the Circuit Court
were sworn in on Wednesday, 25 July
1996 in the Supreme Court. The new
judges were His Honour Judge
Anthony Kennedy, His Honour Judge
Kevin Haugh, His Honour Judge John
Buckley, His Honour Judge Raymond
Groarke, Her Honour Judge Alison
Lindsay, Her Honour Judge Elizabeth
Dunne, His Honour Frank O'Donnell,
His Honour Michael White.
Ms. Olive Buttimer will be sworn in at
a later date.
Below we profile the careers of the
three solicitor judges.
His Honour Judge
John F Buckley
His Honour Judge
John Buckley
was
born in Dublin in 1931. Educated at
Synge Street CBS and University
College Dublin where in brief
absences from Dramsoc, the L and H
& College Politics, he took the
degrees of BA and LLB. He was
admitted a solicitor in the Trinity term
of 1956.
He subsequently worked as an
assistant solicitor for the firms of C B
W Boyle & Son and George J Colley
& Company in Dublin, R A Osborne
& Co. in Athy and Hickey & O'Reilly
in Dublin. He became a partner in
Hickey &O'Reilly in 1968 and a
partner in the new firm of Hickey
Beauchamp Kirwan &O'Reilly in
1973 and remained a partner until
1987.
The new judge was appointed a part-
time Commissioner of the Law
Reform Commission in 1987 and
thereupon left the partnership but
remained as a Consultant with Hickey
Beauchamp Kirwan & O'Reilly,
subsequently Beauchamps, from 1987
until his appointment to the Circuit
Court Bench.
L-r: His Honour judge Michael White, His Honour judge John Buckley,
His Honour Judge Frank O'Donnell
He was the Law Society's Lecturer in
Conveyancing and Land Law from
1962 to 1972 and served as a member
of the Council of the Law Society
from 1973 to 1987. During that time
he served as Chairman of the
Education, Public Relations and
Premises Committees and was Junior
Vice President of the Society in
1984/85. He was a member of the
Council of the Dublin Solicitors Bar
Association from 1965 onwards and
was President in 1978/79. He was
Chairman of the Committee on Legal
Education and Continuing Legal
Education of the International Bar
Association from 1981 to 1985 and a
member of the Council of the Section
from 1982 onwards. He served as
Chairman of the Section from 1992 to
1994 and since 1994 has been an
Assistant Treasurer of the
International Bar Association.
While the new judge has largely
practised in the area of conveyancing
and land law, having been brought up
as a general practitioner he has never
fully succumbed to the temptations of
specialisation and has continued to
practise in other areas of law, notably
in defamation and latterly professional
negligence claims. He is married with
three children one of whom seems
bent on following in her father's
footsteps, being a law student at UCD.
His leisure interests are sports,
particularly cricket where he has been
co-ordinator of schoolboy cricket in
the Leinster Cricket Club for the last
five years, mucic, theatre, films and
travel.
His Honour Judge
Frank O'Donnell
His Honour Judge
Frank O'Donnell
was born in Co. Donegal. Educated in
Castleknock College, a graduate of
UCD (BCL 1963) and Harvard Law
School (LL.M 1966), he qualified as a
solicitor in 1964 and is a partner in the
firm of Bell Branigan O'Donnell &
O'Brien.
Frank O'Donnell was President of the
Law Society in 1984/85 and has
served as Chairman of the Registrar's
Committee, Compensation Fund
Committee, Public Relations
Committee and the Finance
Committee. Prior to his elevation to
the Bench he was chairman of the
Arbitration Committee which is
investigating the possibility of
promoting Ireland as a forum for
international arbitrations. He was also
a member of the Criminal Injuries
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