Flying high as a legal eagle

`It's a problem-solving profession," says Ronan MacSweeney simply. As an apprentice solicitor with McCann FitzGerald solicitors, he describes the work as riveting and challenging.

MacSweeney says it's been "a steep learning curve" since he started his training in January 1998. "The work is very interesting. You have a diverse range of clients. Every case brings challenges. You need to be a good communicator, but you also need to be a good listener. You have to be a people person and work well, especially with your colleagues.

"You have to be alert to all possible aspects or questions or issues that might be thrown up by a case and you have to have that at the back of your mind and very often the most obvious might not be the relevant issue but you have to have an eye for that," he says.

"You need to be inquisitive, you need to be keen on the law. You need to be enthusiastic about legal issues," he continues. Since he began at the firm, which handles commercial matters as opposed to criminal, he's worked in different sections - including property, litigation and banking.

The stereotypical image of a mundane, blinkered, penpushing legal drone has no basis in fact - nothing could be further from the truth he says. He points to the wide world at his fingertips: he can access all European Union legislation from his desk.

"It's a very good time to be a solicitor in Ireland," he says. "The legal profession is changing. The rates of pay for apprentices are much better." The view from the conference room on the sixth floor of the office building in the International Financial Services Centre is of Dublin's built-up city centre. In the distance, there's Smithfield Chimney. To the north, there's Croke Park. "You have to distinguish between the dreamy spires and the reality," says MacSweeney, cautioning aspiring legal eagles who might consider a career at the bar to be more exciting. He was pragmatic when it came to choosing his career path.

The idea of becoming a barrister didn't appeal because he knew that in a solicitors' firm "from day one in here I could be doing interesting law, learning about law in a practical way". To begin work as a barrister, on the other hand, "could take you the best part of a decade in the Four Courts". After completing a master's in law, he made his choice and he's never looked back. "Solicitors are very committed to their profession. I thinks it's a very honourable profession."

"I had a number of options when I graduated. Like anybody you weigh them up and see what you are going to get most out of. I felt that a job in McCann FitzGerald would give me the best opportunities for advancement in my professional career." The apprenticeship involves learning on the job and studying at Blackhall Place, where "you get lectures from practitioners who cut away the theory and focus on practical elements". Now he "overwhelmingly" wants to continue his specialisation in construction-related cases.

An Oranmore native, MacSweeney had no great desire to be a solicitor, whether as a student from at St Patrick's National School in Galway city or later as a boarder at St Jarlath's College in Tuam.

After the Leaving Certificate in 1990, he toyed with the idea of going into journalism. At NUI Galway, while studying for a BA in English and economics, he even thought about a career in acting, joining the dramatic society for a while.

It was his involvement in the debating society that led to an interest in law, largely because the most impressive debaters in the university's debating society were always from the law department. They could cite case upon case to back up an argument. It whetted his appetite to learn more for himself.

On graduating, he did a post-graduate degree in law. He continued to debate and he was winner of the Irish Times Debates in 1996. Then he did a master's in law at the University of Edinburgh, choosing a topical issue for his thesis, which was entitled After Dolly: An Ethical and Legal Analysis of the Developing Technologies of Cloning. Out of a class of about 70, he was one of a handful to get a first-class honours.

Thinking back to his days as a student, he says you do have to "knuckle down and be willing to work hard - but that doesn't mean that you can't enjoy yourself".