It’s taken me a few months to post this - I successfully defended my doctoral dissertation in May and am now officially Dr. O’Hare. My researched focused on the continuing demand for English law in international markets. Thanks to my committee Prof Roger Alford, Prof Patrick Corrigan and Prof Ibrahim Warde for all their support. I truly believe academic work is a public good so always happy to discuss and share my work - interestingly I’ve had some great conversations recently about the relevance to climate finance.
Every PhD journey is different (technically I received a JSD), mine included two homes at the University of Notre Dame: the Dept of Political Science Notre Dame (it was wonderful to graduate on the same day as Dr. Kimberly Peh and Dr. Benjamin Garcia Holgado) and Notre Dame Law School. I had a third home at Beacon Health under Heather Beaver’s care and her wonderful rehab team after I suffered a serious concussion/mild traumatic brain injury in May 2020. Along the way I had the opportunity to speak at the OECD - OCDE, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, American Political Science Association, MPSA, ASIL, Afronomicslaw Delocalised Law conference, The University of Texas at Austin, as well as completing several fabulous fellowships, the Leadership & Socially Engaged Research Fellowship and as one of the inaugural cohort of National Science Foundation (NSF) funded Responsible Innovation Fellows at ND, a Grad Fellow at Nanovic Institute for European Studies, involvement with Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies and the opportunity to give many talks, presentations, and lectures across Notre Dame. I was a visiting associate professor at Notre Dame Law School in London, teaching international finance land a visiting professor at Raffles University in India. Collaborations with MEDRC , Dr. Natasha Rose, PhD, Monalisa Ms, Emma Rosenberg, Lakshmi Kumar, Dr. Bonny Ling were other professional highlights.
Back now in legal practice, and along the way had generous mentorship and support from a number of former colleagues and friends, including David Higgins, Jeffrey Rubinoff, Paul Reynolds, Emily Julier, Triona Ryan, Mark Kavanagh, Ian Falconer, Louise Hennessey, the team at ByrneWallace LLP, Miriam Caley (née Dorn) and now everyone at Standard Chartered. Last but by no means least two charities Hostage International and Trauma Treatment International gave and continue to give me invaluable support (I’m fundraising for HI at the moment - https://lnkd.in/eCyNzfBs!).
Probably not fully done with academia - I’ve just submitted a chapter for an edited volume (publication date TBC) and have ideas for two other projects, one looking at Irish mythology and trauma and the other a more legal history & climate related project. But for now, I’m talking a little break from all things academic and would really love to catch up with old friends and colleagues, a PhD can be a bit of an all consuming affair!
