PROF JOHN Larkin, whom Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness have agreed should be the Northern Ireland Attorney General when a minister for justice is appointed, represented the DUP during the St Andrews Agreement talks in October 2006.
Prof Larkin, who is in his mid-40s, is from Glenavy in Co Antrim, a Catholic who was educated at the Christian Brothers grammar school on the Glen Road in nationalist west Belfast.
Viewed as politically moderate, he represented the DUP in several cases over the past decade and more, according to party sources.
He was their legal adviser during the St Andrews talks in Scotland that resulted in the agreement that was the foundation for the current powersharing administration.
Colleagues say he is a bright and formidable lawyer and is well respected among his peers.
He was Reid Professor of Law at Trinity College Dublin from 1989-1992 following in the footsteps of former president Mary Robinson and current President Mary McAleese.
He studied at Queen's University Belfast and was called to the Bar in Northern Ireland in 1986. He was called to the Irish Bar in 1995.
He has several areas of special legal interest including civil liberties and human rights, administrative law, defamation, European law, housing, inquests, planning and private international law.
He is viewed as an expert on judicial reviews and his book, Judicial Review in Northern Irelandwhich he wrote with barrister David Scoffield and published last year, is judged an authoritative reference book.
The Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland, Sir Brian Kerr said it was "an excellent work" which contained a "comprehensive review of recent developments in all areas of judicial review while setting its evolution in this jurisdiction in its proper historical context".
Prof Larkin represented the Irish Newsand BBC Northern Ireland in a recent successful case seeking authority to publish photographs of north Belfast loyalist Mark Haddock when he is released from prison.
Haddock, who was sentenced to 10 years in 2006 for false imprisonment and grievous bodily harm, was the UVF leader in north Belfast when it was involved in several murders. These killings happened at a time when Haddock and others were RUC special branch informers, as outlined in former police ombudsman Nuala O'Loan's report Operation Ballast.