Cayman wind blows for lawyer

It's an ill wind etc. John Lawless, the 26-year-old solicitor with the McCracken tribunal, is now settling into a new life on…

It's an ill wind etc. John Lawless, the 26-year-old solicitor with the McCracken tribunal, is now settling into a new life on the Cayman Islands. Those who followed the dramatic events of last spring will recall that it was Lawless who drove from Dublin Castle to Kinsealy with the sealed envelope containing notes of a telephone conversation between Ben Dunne's solicitor, Noel Smyth, and Charles Haughey.

He also travelled to the Cayman Islands when the tribunal made its application to the courts there and he came to the notice of Charlie Quin, the Irish lawyer who represented it on Cayman. Lawless now has a job with Quin & Hampson.

It is a different milieu for a man from Clonmel, Co Tipperary, and his fiancee, Catherine Ryan, a solicitor from Kilbeggan, Co Westmeath. He started working in the Chief State Solicitor's office last year but had been considering a move to Britain when the offer of a place in the sun arrived.